I’m a firm believer in setting goals (as opposed to New Year’s Resolutions). Publicly announcing my goals is something new to me, but I imagine it will only help me to fulfill them because I know I can count on you to hold me accountable. It will also give me an opportunity to post updates on my progress and measure them throughout the year. If any of them sound good to you, feel free to join me. I’ll help hold you accountable too.
1. Reduce my portfolio to approximately 100 names at any given time, plus or minus 10%
This may sound counterproductive to some, but I’m finding a portfolio of several hundred difficult to manage. I’m not focusing enough time any any one thing, but instead, constantly reviewing the list. This goes hand in hand with my second goal for the upcoming year.
2. Improve the quality and value of my portfolio
While I reduce the size of my portfolio, I am going to focus on higher quality names. Less hand regs and more aftermarket names. I’m going to maintain logical thinking and not buy domains without doing some research. No more shooting from the hip and knee jerk purchases. I have a good story as to how this bit me in the ass in the past and I will probably share more details this coming year.
3. Develop 5 profitable sites
I don’t think this is too lofty of a goal… but maybe I’m wrong. I’ve enjoyed reading the successes of others who have developed sites this past year. I’m thinking this gives me over two months to develop a domain. TeenDomainer did one over a weekend for God’s sake, how lazy can I be? I want to focus building 5 quality and profitable sites, so I don’t want to rush this. Besides, there are plenty of other demands on my time, so just trying to keep everything in perspective.
4. Attend a domain conference
I won’t be at DomainFest in February, so I’m getting off to a bad start with this one. Maybe I’ll shoot for T.R.A.F.F.I.C. in the fall, or something in between.
5. Increase my contribution to the domain industry
I don’t yet have this one figured out. Maybe it will be answering more questions, posting more of my experiences, I’m really not sure yet. But I’ll find a way to contribute more to those who have a passion around domain name investing and developing. For starters, feel free to connect with me on Twitter or my personal page on Facebook.
Have any domain goals of your own for the upcoming year? Post a comment with what you’re hoping to achieve.
7 comments
Mike, RE: Goal nimber 5, all you have to do is keep your readers abreast by posting step by step when you start to develop the 5 names. That would go a long way.
@adinfinite, I’ll definitely do that.
Great goals, I am going to set a few for myself now. They can always change. I set some for myself this summer and I think I finally hit them this month!
@Brian, Can’t wait to see them. Will you post them on your blog?
Good stuff…don’t forget a few Chicago domainer meetups…I love Starbucks btw 😉
@Tim, for sure. I’ll have to hit a few of those, but I rely on you to let me know the when and where. You’re much more in the loop on those than I am.
Yes, I believe many domainers are realizing the importance of quality. I have dropped net of new acquisitions over 100 domains in the last 3-4 months and yet believe my portfolio quality has not suffered. The money not spent on low-quality renewals can go into higher-quality acquisition opportunities. Regarding website development, note that while one can fairly easily launch a static minisite, ranking a site for a competitive search term is a little more involved. At times I have spread myself thin with too many sites and then none rank well – just a warning. Also, focus on topics of interest – not just domains in your portfolio with search volume.