
How I saved $39,420 by not buying a domain without a prototype - turoczy
http://www.adamduvander.com/simple/how-i-saved-39420-by-not-buying-a-domain-without-a-prototype
======
michael_nielsen
Why, just this morning I saved myself 360 million dollars by not buying a
Boeing-747!

[http://www.boeing.com/boeing/commercial/prices/](http://www.boeing.com/boeing/commercial/prices/)

~~~
kryptiskt
It warms my heart that Boeing has pricing information available, even if it's
just average prices. I hate that "Call Us" where the price should be and
needing to go through excruciating pitching by sales droid to get further,
I'll ask them how their product is more special than a 747 next time....

~~~
therealarmen
Without providing an easy way to pay they are losing lots of potential
customers. If they just added a simple Stripe form, their conversions would
double overnight.

~~~
jakcst
Fee = $360,000,000 x 0.029 + $.30 = $10,440,000.30

~~~
dan1234
They could really reduce that fee if they started accepting payments in
Bitcoin!

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ryanthejuggler
I actually _made_ $500 by buying a domain without a prototype. Back in college
I started working on a personal project I decided to call "Silicon Brain". As
soon as I had my first 5 lines of JavaScript I bought the domain name
"sibrain.com". Fast forward a few months... I've lost interest in the project.
Someone contacts me looking to buy the domain, I accept, payment is made
within a week, and I am $500 richer.

[EDIT: Thanks joelrunyon for the cached copy.]

I'd like to make a counterargument: that if you think of a domain name that's
relatively pronouncable and not extremely limited in scope (e.g. "joes-art-
supply.com" would be pretty specific, but "joeworld.com" doesn't limit you as
much) nab it. Granted, you don't want to be doing this _every_ day, but
remember, "google" was once a nonsense word (okay, it was a misspelling of a
number that was rarely used outside of certain contexts).

~~~
phaed
The guy who bought the domain from you could have saved himself $500 had he
not bought the domain before prototype (the site is dead).

~~~
ryanthejuggler
Good point. I'm probably only justifying my "habit" here...

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joelrunyon
His numbers seem a bit off & inflated to make the point.

For example - why does he have to buy 3 domains per idea he thinks up? Getting
the .com alone would be sufficient until he actually does have a prototype.
Similarly, why is he bound to hold on to them for 3 years a piece?

A good alternative would be the "1 year rule" or buy a domain & commit to not
renewing if you don't have a prototype finished by the first year.

All of a sudden - instead of risking $40k, you've got that by a factor of 10
(and that's if you're actually buying a domain every single day). At that
point - the domain buying either needs to be a part-time job or is a really
bad exercise in procrastination & distraction.

 _Alternative Numbers_

> 1 Year - 365 Ideas

> Domain - $10.50

> 1 Year = $3,650

~~~
duvander
Yeah, my numbers were inflated, but even with your numbers the point is the
same: work on your idea first and only buy its home when you're ready to
launch. Thanks for reading.

~~~
whatever2001
and make a more than a mental note to cancel the domain name if you don't use
it in a year's time. It's the re-occuring domain charges that really get you
in the end. (no pun intended).

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joelrunyon
Site is down.

Mirror here:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.adamduvander.com/simple/how-
i-saved-39420-by-not-buying-a-domain-without-a-prototype)

~~~
duvander
Thanks. I didn't expect you guys to find me. :)

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wikwocket
The reasoning here is a little silly; even those who pursue ideas without
prototypes or validation probably don't buy up three domains _every single
day_ , so of course it's not a matter of saving forty thousand dollars.

However, this does bring to mind two good points:

* Consider validating an idea, or at least making a paper prototype, before spending lot of time or money chasing it.

* Getting the perfect domain name for an idea is not crucial to its success. Look at Dropbox, they used getdropbox.com early on, presumably until they were big enough to buy dropbox.com.

~~~
quasque
The truth of Dropbox's acquisition of dropbox.com is a little murkier than
them just buying it - it appears that they initiated this by suing the
previous owner, who had owned the domain since 1995:

[http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-
courts/californ...](http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-
courts/california/candce/3:2009cv03824/218466/8/)

However, the case was later dismissed, so I guess they came to some other
agreement after all:

[http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-
courts/californ...](http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-
courts/california/candce/3:2009cv03824/218466/12/)

No details on whether the initial owner had to give up the domain or was
fairly compensated.

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Nurdok
> 1 Year - 365 Ideas.

I don't believe someone can buy domains for a spur-of-the-moment idea back-to-
back even 3 days before he'll realize he has a problem. I would think that you
can at least remember than you bought a domain yesterday and try to work on it
a little.

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swalsh
> Just about every day I have at least one new idea.

Jeez, and here I am having trouble coming up with just one.

~~~
logn
The best way to overcome this is to keep a running list of any business or
project you think of that's even remotely worthwhile. Continually groom and
sort this list. It's like how comedians and writers come up with material, a
lot of them carry around a notebook. Your brain gets used to having this
background thread that is coming up with ideas and seeing all your ideas laid
out in writing spurs new ones.

~~~
swalsh
I think the main problem (for me) is that I live in a vacuum. I work in a tech
company that engineers products for engineers. I've surrounded myself with so
much tech savvy people, and places that I don't have inspiration for problems
I am capable of solving. My desire is to create a product for "normal
people"... but i don't know what "normal people" have issues with.

~~~
beat
Are you not a normal person yourself? Do you not have problems? Go scratch
your own itch!

Just yesterday I chewed through a (pretty good) idea for a modern review-
oriented site for gear-centric hobbies. As a guitarist and photographer, I
read a lot of gear reviews, and the sites that provide them are often horrible
to use - 2002-vintage antiques, or ugly and unnavigable, or both. But the
hobbyists have well-used forums (awful ones), enough to make a living for some
small time businesses.

So the other night, I was researching Japanese kitchen knives, as I'm planning
to get my daughter some for Christmas, and butted into the same problem. And I
thought, "Wouldn't it be great if someone built a really modern review app and
built hobby gear review sites with it?"

I spent a couple of hours poring over the financial model for such a business,
and decided it was a bad idea. Running on ad support and waiting for the
content to build would be a slow, painful time with a fairly low income
ceiling.

But hey, want an idea? There's one. Run with it!

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neya
I probably didn't save as much as the OP, but I saved a good $1000 of my
domains. You see, domain registration becomes addictive, when you get an idea,
you are so convinced that it would work and it will make you rich (probably)
over night. I've fallen for this trap too, I registered some top notch domains
in a span of 2 years, amounting to a total of ~50+ domains because of that
sudden impulsive urge - "Oh, it's available! I should register it ASAP!"

Contrary to popular belief, there is (in my personal experience) not much
(monetary) value for domains as the registrars and the others might want you
to believe. I registered some really short, cool names that were estimated by
'domain experts'/appraisals estimating some of my so called premium domains
for $1000's of dollars, yet in the end, I had to pay money to domain
marketplaces (like GoDaddy) to list my domain for sale, only to discover that
the demand isn't just there at all. A few scammers contacted me about their
domain appraisal and brokerage services and that was just it. And unless you
have a really really valuable domain that has some actual traffic in it, this
is not worth investing your money in.

So, I just let the domains expire one by one. At first it was kind of painful,
but after two painful years and after losing $1000+ dollars, I can tell you
that when you have the actual product ready, the domain will be the least of
your problems.

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CookWithMe
> When the domain version of the name is available

When did that ever happen?

For every prototype I have build, I (or we in some cases) spend days looking
for good name-domain combinations.

In my experience it is a real pain to find a domain worth buying for a
specific idea, let alone 3 per day.

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petercooper
Overall point is good, but while I could believe someone could come up with a
reasonable idea every day of the year, coming up with a good enough _name_ for
each one that's worth registering seems unrealistic. If you can do _that_ ,
you could have a mind blowing career in branding ;-)

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doki_pen
If you buy a domain for x and can't resell it for some approximation of x,
then you paid too much.

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joshguthrie
How I'm gonna save time by not clicking on linkbait.

------
kshay
403 I Didn't Buy a Domain

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whatever2001
site's down, perhaps a sign from the domain gods??

