Comment by donmcronald | Hacker News Reader

Comment by donmcronald | Hacker News Reader

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> You claim you know of a guaranteed way to make money, you only need some starting money. If you are so sure, and your idea is so good, you should be able to convince somebody to lend you the money to do it.

I didn't say I know of a guaranteed way to make money. I was saying that domain squatting isn't novel or difficult or some kind of genius idea. The primary driver of success in the domainer market is having a big pool of capital and the rest is easy enough that if someone has the capital for it they're not going to cut someone else in. They might hire a domainer as an employee, but they're not going to be looking for partners.

> It always shocks me how ready poor people are with their excuses.

The person that wrote this article is holding ~200 .ai domains at a cost of ~$70/year at Namecheap. That's $14k per year. The federal minimum wage in the USA is ~$15k per year ($7.25/hour).

Why don't you lay out a financial plan for me where a person making $15k per year can hold a $14k per year .ai portfolio?

As I said, take out a business loan. You claim with enough money, it is easy to make money with domains. So do the calculation and go to your bank. How much money will you need, and how much can you make?

Or work your way up. You don't have to stay on minimum wage forever. In fact, if you are on minimum wage, you should probably think about ways to improve your income. Most people in minimum wage are probably not there forever - they may be pupils or students, or pensioners making extra money, and so on.

Also the cost per year is less relevant, if you earn more from selling domains every year. Only the difference is relevant (costs vs income).

It sounds like you have easy access to money and have never been broke. Banks don't give "business loans" to poor people. The first question they ask is what kind of security or personal guarantee you can give and when the answer is "nothing", their answer is "no."

If you do manage to borrow money and things don't work out, you have to pay it back and that takes a long time when you're going back to the crappy income level you were trying to escape. It's not like Silicon Valley venture capital where you say sorry and get another bag of cash to try again.

> Also the cost per year is less relevant, if you earn more from selling domains every year. Only the difference is relevant (costs vs income).

Yeah, but the person with the money to start has 200+ domains and a (supposed) $1 million portfolio. The person who bought 1 domain using the same strategy might have a portfolio worth a few thousand dollars. They're not going to be writing a blog bragging about their portfolio or landing business deals because of the million dollar business they built.

The point I was trying to make is that if you take a rich person and a poor person with the exact same skill set and idea, the rich person will be viewed as being super successful (making a million dollars) while the poor person, although personally happy with the outcome, would be viewed as a loser if they make $10k and "waste" it on something like a reliable vehicle.

It's also a bit amusing to me that if a poor person wanted to start flipping domains using a 5 letter .com, like the person in the article, they'd have to buy the domain from a squatter.

Then lend the money to yourself, if you are so convinced.

Please become specific: how much money do you reckon would you need to do what that person did?

If you are so convinced it is easy money, and there is absolutely nobody who would borrow you money, set your goals to saving that much money and do it yourself.

If you have the skills that guy has, I don't believe you are stuck in a minimum wage job, either. And those skills are free to acquire on the internet if you can read and write, so please don't argue that education is not affordable for poor people.

You don't have to get a one million $ portfolio right away, btw, you can also start with a smaller portfolio. He is making money by having domains people want to buy, not by having many domains. You could start with one domain, costing you only 70$.

I also don't understand your point about having to buy from a squatter. He describes how he got hold of interesting domains at a fair price, that is the entire trick.

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