How To Avoid The $64,000 Mistake!

Latif Shastee / July 18th, 2024 / Smart business, Internet business, online marketing, business name

Even seasoned experts make this mistake

Everybody could use $64,000. Not an insignificant amount. It's not exactly the chump change you'll find behind the cushions of your living room sofa.

Internet, and in particular electronic commerce or Internet Businesses have come a long way since the early days of 1996.

Difficult to believe it is 2024 now and hundreds of thousands of businesses are making money online, after many years of evolving Internet commerce. Online business ideas have grown from opportunities for stay-at-home moms or underpaid office workers to earn some extra cash in their spare time to businesses that make $20,000 or $30,000 or $50,000 per month. Now it is a possible path to financial freedom and many are following that path and often succeeding.

This does not mean that it is easy. You will need to consider niche product research to assessing opportunities correctly, as well as setting up a Web site, a blog, may be a newsletter system, SEO, link building, marketing, social media, content creation, copy writing, building an email list, as well as direct internet marketing and online promotions..

But compared to traditional means of starting a business, say starting a restaurants or a local contracting or a franchase in printing or graphics or other business services - the Internet business, if done right, is undoubtedly one of the easiest, cheapest, and fastest ways to start a business. Having said that, it is still a business and it takes hard work, a great vision, and a risk-taking attitude on your road to success.

Despite what kind of Internet business you decide to embark on, there is one thing that most people get wrong the first time around and sometimes it is just too difficult to recover from it and accepting it comes with a sobering acceptance that you have lost a lot of money because you did not think about it the way you should have at the start.

What most people get wrong: the name of the business. There is a lot to a name.

Let's look at an example.

We all know how popular iPhones have become over the years. By January 2024, about 800 million iphone had been sold by Apple worldwide.

Market for the cell phone and wireless technology has grown dramatically. Additionally, millions of apps (or iPhone applications) have been written, produced, built, promoted, and sold in the App Store and across the Internet worldwide.

As a result of the growth in iPhone apps, a genius company came up with a totally convenient idea for the use of voice texting with iphones.

To say, "win some, lose some", is a courageous way of accepting that you could lose that much money. But it happens, if one is not careful about the opportunities that are right in front of their noses.

Sometimes when they are realized, after being lost, it can be quite devastating.

Here's the story that will shock you, but will open your eyes. You will value to all things that you do have, will think twice next time such opportunities knock at your door.

Voice texting in its simplest form is like automated dictation through voice recognition with the added feature of SMS texting. But this company came up with a product that can do so much more. All commands that use to be inputed using your fingure tips will now be inserted using recognizable voice commands.

Let me explain.

You would use your iPhone to record a message or dictate a document or create a memo for your secretary or schedule an appointment request to meet your client regarding an issue, or support, or new sales or business development, etc.

The iPhone texting software would convert your voice recording into a digital string commands or files and using smart commands that you will speak during the voice recognition menu, it will act as your secretary and, to a certain degree, perform the tasks that you require.

It can even do reminders and send you an SMS for your meetings tomorrow or what preparations you need to do, presentation memo or even get you tickets to upcoming concerts, sports events, social and entertainment venues and more.

The company iPhoneTexter.com designed and built an incredible software app for the iPhone wireless smart-phone industry to do all this and even more.

With the iPhoneTexter.com app you can actually record a command that sends a message by SMS to your favorite coffee shop with the details of your coffee or tea order while you are getting into your car first thing in the morning.

Then you drive up to the outside window to collect your coffee or tea and off you go. The iPhoneTexer.com software even takes care of your credit card processing for payment of your coffee/tea order.

Does it get any easier or more convenient than this?

Yes, it does.

So you have a personal secretary and an easy voice command menu to automatically convert your voice commands into digital text and place them, say anywhere in your digital organizer while emailing your contacts, scheduling your appointments, sending you reminders, ordering and paying for your morning coffee and even searching for best deals and discounts all over the Internet including daily deal sites like, Groupon and Social Living.

What does all this have to do with $64,000 mistake?

Well, when iPhoneTexter.com wanted to get started a few years ago, the first thing they knew they will need, was a domain name for their company Web site. The keywords that matched best with their business model and product were "iphone" and "texter". So they wanted the domain name, iPhoneTexter.com.

But this was owned already by an individual who buys, keeps, and builds a domain name portfolio and sells the domain names when there is a market for it.

How did he buy it originally?

When he read in the newspaper that a local company is looking for venture capital investment, to build and sell a product that used texting of digital voice commands into a management and digital communications and scheduling software server, he decided to buy a few domain names whose keywords are based on a few permutations that relate to iphone, texter, SMS, and voice recognition.

Based on what he could research, he came up with about a dozen potential domain names that may fit the company when they are ready to build a company web site. He then bought some domain names and approached individuals who had existing domain names that matched his list of keyword permutations.

He managed to find a company that was in the process of building a site whereby they would offer the best rates for International SMS texting, although the business never took off and no Web site was ever developed. Due to procrastanation this company just parked the domain iPhoneTexter.com and possibly ignored its true potential.

With a few emails back and forward and a making different offers, the domain portfolio agent managed to purchase the domain name for $200 from the procrastinating owner.

Now equipped with a few very relevant and keyword matching domains, he started marketing the domains as an aftermarket agent who eventually contacted the startup company and offered to sell the domain names.

Once initial negotiations were complete and the list of domains were evaluated by the newly formed company, the domain iPhoneTexter.com was sold for $64,200 and he received a certified check from the attorneys of the new startup company who had just completed their first round Series A capital venture investment for $15 million Dollars. All of this took about 30 days. So, you can make $64,000 in a single month. Theoritically, at least.

So, next time you want to sell your domain name for $200, or even $500, do a little research to see if there is a company whose name matches your domain name. See if there is a potential market for the keywords and the uniqueness of your domain name. Otherwise, it may cost you exactly $64,000 that you could have made on the sale.

Domain names sold in recent years :

Here a list of some of the most expensive domains sold for figures that are just hard to imagine.

LasVegas.com - $90,000,000 (Leased between 2005-2040)
CarInsurance.com - $49,700,000 (w/content-2010)
Insurance.com - $35,600,000 (2010)
VacationRentals.com - $35,000,000 (2007)
PrivateJet.com - $30,180,000 (2012)
Internet.com - $18 million (2009)
360.com - $17 million (2015)
Insure.com - $16 million (2009)
Bankaholic.com - $15 million (2008)
Sex.com - $13 million (2010)
IRS.com - $12,500,000 (2007)
Hotels.com - $11,000,000 (2001)
CardRatings.com - $10,200,000 (2008)
Fund.com - $9,999,950 (2008)
Porn.com - $9,500,000 (2007)
Porno.com - $8,888,888 (2015)
FB.com - $8,500,000 (2010)
RealEstate.com - $8,250,000
We.com - $8,000,000 (2016)
Business.com - $7,500,000 (1999)
Diamond.com - $7,500,000 (2006)
Beer.com - $7,000,000 (2004)
Z.com - $6,784,000 (2014)
Israel.com - $5,880,000
Casino.com - $5,500,000
Slots.com - $5,500,000 (2010)
Toys.com - $5,100,000 (2009)
AsSeenOnTV.com - $5,100,000 (2000)
Property.com & Properties.com - ca.$5,000,000
SEO.com - $5,000,000 (2007)
Korea.com - $5,000,000 (2004)

Even domain names that you may consider being of little value, could still earn you a good payout for your investment. That is precisely why at least 50,000 people around the world invest in their domain name after-market portfolio.

Here's a list for some other domains sold and their auction prices:

SkiResorts.com - $850,000
DVDs.com - $310,000
Offer.com - $180,000
SearchEngines.com - $92,500
GoldDigger.com - $80,000
iPhoneTexter.com - $64,200
AromatherapyCandles.com - $22,000
ReverseLoans.com - $15,000
AroundTheWorldCruises.com - $8,000

So if you have domains that you purchased a while ago and are just sitting on them to see if one day you will start a new online business, or some other startup venture - you may be happy to know that the time you have spent thinking, has been time well spent and now your domain is worth may be more than you think.

One word of advice, if you want to sell your domain name: Appraisal. You get the point?