Hello

[Ben]

Name is Ben, know a few of you from the real world. Nice to see so many familiar names in here posting

For those that don't know me, I am a bit of a nutter. Quite like seo, domains and affiliate marketing. Avid collector and marketer. Have done most things online from working in online travel business, to agency seo, seo consulting, working with super affiliates, and most of the subtleties in between.

Recently I have gone 100% solo and am focusing more on brokering and selling some of my names. I never really thought I'd reach this point, but it's been an interesting ride.

Honestly took me until about 2006 to actually start 'getting' domain names. After realising the errors of my judgment not noticing earlier, I soon started registering more, and more. Business slowly changed from strictly seo consulting - which can be dangerously lucrative, to slowly buying up as much as I could within a recipe I'd worked.

My domaining starting with bulk free registrations in March 2007, I slowly built a portfolio and started learning more about the aftermarket. Most of my first registrations (first were 2006) were semi developed and tested. Now I don't register many free reg domains and it's all aftermarket - I had to address my addiction and stop - lol.

My next phase is properly developing out a series of portfolios I've been building up. I'm currently exploring all angles from copywriting to e-commerce shopping comparison sites. This is in an effort to get enough together to really set a few off which will fuel the next round of expansion.

My biz is kind of like a mini, mini omg, only I am self funded, it's all 100% owned by me. I'm really looking forward to launching some real sites and finally taking my biz to the next level.

 

[DomainMarketPlace]

Welcome Ben.

Nice to see that your making a go of it. Will you be doing the development of the sites yourself or farming it out?

 

[Ben]

I just slowly row my own boats these days. Mostly myself, have done full scale development for clients before, so just an extension of that. I will still nearly always need programming help.

So slowly building tools to help me develop alone, rather than rely on web developers. Initially I'm getting help with backend work and doing all the client side myself. Design, html, css, etc. I want to just learn enough about it to be able to master the basics and outsource the rest. I'm a long way off being a competent php programmer, but I've played with some hand built php sites using rss feeds, I just need to go the next step.

I'm currently building a few shops, one for rare and collectable sneakers, another in a bags niche and also I'll be developing some affiliate datafeed sites in jewelry and sex shop areas. I'll will probably post the details when they go live.

 

[DavidL]

Hi Ben,

Good to see you here on DNTrade. Sounds like you have a sound plan & the motivcation and expertise to carry it out! Good luck - noticed you grabbed a couple of domains I was chasing the other week...

 

[Ben]

haha, I thank you for building my vision for a domain platform David, far better than I would have managed I reckon. Glad we had that chat a while back, it's rare people actually act and nice work for doing so ;-P Has put you in a nice spot with some even nicer data! I was thinking at least free netfleet credits for life , maybe even some revenue for some of my ideas? 5% would be ok. Sounds like an outrageously wild bargain to me… I'll understand if you feel different… In all seriousness, good on you for taking it on, gallant effort.

re:those names, nice time to be buying, you might like some of my recent acquisitions too.

Thanks for reporting them to DN Journal too, nice work. Good for .au. I'm assuming they are the one's you mean?

<totally offtopic>I said to someone the other day you should buy domaining.com.au and wack the site on there. Rebrand it.</totally offtopic>

 

[soj]

Hey Ben and welcome to the forum. Good to see people getting out of their jobs and onto their own. Im not the biggest fan of working for the man, luckily I, like many others on here, don't have to worry about doing it.

 

[neddy]

Welcome Ben. And good on you - I really like your contributions so far! I wish you all the best.

 

[dotworx]

Hello Ben, good to know you've achieved your goal of flying solo. What an achievement! Definitely a direction I'd like to head to.

BTW, I got your invite from Twitter. I don't actually tweet or use it at all. So we might just talk over here and I'll keep an eye on your blog too!

cheers
Jeph

 

[Ross]

Hi Ben,

Welcome to the forum... i've actually heard about you from OZdomainer ... and seen you're photo as well. Good to know that there are so many people in their early 30ies and late 20ies doing this.

 

[Data Glasses]

good luck ben ! welcome

 

[Ben]

I won't be posting anymore folks. I'm not patient, nor diplomatic enough to do it. To be honest I'm pretty shocked by the reaction to some of my posts, some were meant to hit a nerve, but not start dick comparison wars. I couldn't care less, I'm very happy with my achievements.

I'm sure folks like James (pacific octane) and Chris Bayley will easily fill any void left.

Good luck to all the newbies!! Don't let the more experienced guys (usually they are still in struggle street) bullshit you into thinking they know what they are on about, and help people out along the way - it all comes back and anyone can make it, just need to work hard. Something few of us want to actually do!

Ben