Six months ago I announced plans of developing TampaBay.tv and Indianapolis.in into amazing community portals with an emphasis on Tampa Bay, because it is made up of 8 counties, a population of nearly 4 million residents, dozens of beautiful beaches, high tourism traffic, NFL, NHL and MLB teams. My plans were to develop a main portal and eight sub sites for each of the counties. With this model I’d be able to basically run nine websites in one project which gave me the maximum revenue potentials.
On paper I was set to easily bring in six figures per year from the start and once traffic picked up I could bring in as much as seven figures.
So if this was such a great project then why terminate?
I became an online businessman because I did not want to be in the streets pushing my product. The beauty of an online business is that I can sit at home in my pajamas and earn a good living. Taking on this project means going into the streets, meeting the community and businesses pushing the website. In addition, the drive to Tampa Bay ranges from 45-120 minutes from current residence depending on the area. Not only do I have to sell them on my site but the extension. Yes, I said the extension because it’s not a dot com. From the word go I am at a disadvantage. I will get nearly zero type in traffic, spend at least three times the amount of time and money on marketing the site and have to educate everyone on the use of dot TV or dot IN.
Am I against alternate extensions? Not at all and please don’t take this that way. Because I’m building a community site instead of a tourism site, my audience is in the streets. I don’t want to be in the streets. Being out there pushing the sites will take an enormous amount of time – time that will take away from my other projects that need just as much attention.
Although I’m extremely embarrassed about dropping these projects, I am also very relieved. I felt too much pressure to make something work that had too many up hill battles. It’s not the amount of work that worried me, it was the type of work I would have to endure. After a lot of contemplation and many many talks with my wife, I came to the realization that my business lies with domain names and our industry – that is where I want to make my money. Being an entrepreneur means you have to make hard decisions like that sometimes.
With .TV names being shown in places like the SuperBowl, and being used by companies such as Adidas….. I dont think the burden of education would have been to great for so long.
I agree, I’m not against the extension at all. But also remember, SuperBowl ads cost millions.
Developers of .tv are just making .com owners richer.
Are you going to hold on to the TampaBay.tv domain name and try to sell it? It’s so weird that you mention this today – I just visited the site yesterday or the day before and was wondering about the project.
Actually TampaBay.tv belongs to a friend of mine. She will maintain ownership of the domain name. My guess is she’ll either hold the domain name or develop with a new partner.
Ah well Chef at least it leaves you more time to focus on other things.
While I am still a newbie at development, I don’t see an alternative extension as a drawback unless the .COM is a well-developed site. It appears TampaBay.com is the domain for the city’s newspaper so you would have some stiff competition. Regardless, I still believe TampaBay.tv is a valuable domain.
I’d have to compete with TampaBay.com, TBO.com and VisitTampa.com. Even with that I agree TampaBay.tv is a very valuable domain name.
Out off the pan and into the fire.
Again–dot com is king.
Using BS domains= to BS websites-plain and simple.
“On paper I was set to easily bring in six figures per year from the start”.
Chef – I wish you luck in your next project. I hear where you are coming from. I’ve had many ideas in the past but when it came to getting into the streets to get hands on I just lost desire to get involved anymore.
Exactly. I become an online entrepreneur because I wanted to work in my pajamas.
Yet another good friend of the domainer mob to raise the domain name bubble of 150 millions (or more) unused domains.
The lesson is: it is way harder to develop a website that to grab domains. Thus, tons of domainers waiting for the promising, hard working, and deep pocketed entrepreneur paying a big chunk of money for the so-called premium domain ab-so-lu-te-ly necessary to succeed!
A premium domain like Google
Lol
While I understand the cynicism, I’m not sure I get your point about premium domain names. You think Flickr isn’t kicking themselves for not picking up Flicker.com? We know the founder of Facebook regretted not picking up Facebook.com. Now there is a whole other discussion of extension. Would Justin.tv have worked as well as it did as Justin.com? There’s certainly a type-in traffic issue that alternative gTLDs in particular have to overcome. I think ccTLDs in certain countries have already overcome that hurdle so I think it’s entirely feasible to think that it’s possible to overcome that hurdle for alternative extensions like .TV
The point is to have a strong brand and that brand includes having a memorable name, properly spelled with clear keywords *and* a relevant extension. DotCom is certainly the big daddy, but TampaBay.TV or Indianapolis.IN are still very strong brands that make sense and if properly developed could be very successful. But development takes works and when domainers have hundreds of domains, it requires focus to figure out where you will get the most return for that effort.
Best of luck Patrick.
You make good points Patrick, but I don’t think you will make 7 figures in your pajamas. For 7 figures you have to push and get in the mud. Again IMO Cate should be able to find a partner she is good at networking and its a good name. Best of luck on the other stuff.
Sure it is possible – see plentyoffish.com as an example, but not that easy.
I did pretty good in 2009 while in my PJ’s the entire year
And yes, I’m sure Cate will find another partner if that is the route she decides to go.
Are you implying you made 7 figures ? because that was the point of my comment.
I’d rather not comment on my income publicly. But no, I did not make 7 figures. I just sent you an email.
Oh no prob Patrick and did not mean it like that. Meant you can make a good living in your pajamas, just IMO to make a million a year probably need to get in the mud. I have been criticizing myself a lot lately for not getting into the mud to make the bigger money.
I think we get into the making money online can be done easier, and it is true in some ways just to build a bigger online business probably means easy is not the word.
Hey Patrick, Spent most of 2009 in my PJs too!!
Whole it is a sad day (probably)for Cate, I think this is the best move for your career you could have ever done.
And, as a partner in the business, I would go to work in my Pjs too!! The looks I wouldf receive from the peeps smoking outside and from my staff thinking I had completely lost it!!
Having spent $200,000 + on producing a New York geo – I know one thing – only produce these portals if you can hire, actually poach people from within their respective professions.
Meaning either very good old publishing or even better new media ad sales team, and a professional ,marketing team – steal someone from Respond.Com or Leads.Com
All these people will bring all their contaxcts with them where legally allowed and you have a team to hit the ground running.
Anything short of that – you will burn out or your money will – (depending if you wore pyjamas or not!)
Your dot tv sites make sense if you own the tv stations and the media like CBS but if you are just working with pajamas on, you don’t stand a chance.
That’s precisely why I bought louisville.tv and am working at getting a product worth their attention on the domain. But I live here and have worked in media (including web) for 12 years and have the contacts to produce both content and revenue. If I squeak enough, they’ll bite and buy from me at 3-5x revenue. Then I’ll see a return on my investment.
That may never happen…who knows…but Highly Effective Habit #1 is to begin with the end in mind, right?
Good luck on your project Dan.
Its a little disappointing to hear you say that you are terminating these projects like you’re killing a horse with a broken leg. I suspect dealing with a partner on TampaBay.tv made you feel pressured to get something done, especially since you didn’t actually own the name. In that case it was fair to let your partner know so she could find someone else to team up with.
However, I hope after some time you reconsider developing Indianapolis.in. Maybe a smaller underserved niche in that community that you can focus on and build out over time. I am in the process of doing this myself for some of my .tv, .am and .in domains.
The only way to build awareness of english keyword ccTLD domains is to develop them and tie the ccTLD closely to the keyword to create an overall brand that will stand apart from the .com in the public consciousness.
Not an easy task but definitely a worthwhile one and one that I think can be accomplished without too much travel time if you think outside the box with your gameplan.
My partner did pressure me but in the same respect was very patient and understanding. I actually felt more pressure from the domain community, almost as if .tv was relying on my development.
As time went on and my brand continued to grow I realized concentrating my efforts on this project would not make me happy. I want to focus on more domain related businesses.
Indianapolis.in is a project that would not need as much attention as TampaBay.tv. Because of the smaller population and maybe taking a different direction I may be able to develop something without having to participate in the local community. I will discuss the possibilities with the domain owner.
Thanks for your input.
I think it is the right decision, these sounds to me like 2 figure domains to me so I would think they’d be pretty low down the list in terms of development potential.
Wow, you are up to 2 figures now, you must be softening up.
Snoopy – lol at the 2 figure domain thing. Good luck with that.
Anyway, I agree with Ozie.
“Snoopy – lol at the 2 figure domain thing. Good luck with that.”
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I’d love to see this actually go to auction, seeing other recent .tv sales it would probably be the “sounds of silence”, the name is worth very little. If a 2 figure appraisal is wrong for this name I think it would probably be wrong on the high side.
The days of domainers coughing up 3/4 figures per year on mediocre names like this are largely over, anyone who develops this is carrying a rucksack full of bricks on the their back, in terms of both the extension and the holding costs.
Snoop is correct – alot of people were saying if only the crazy premiums came down, the geos would sell like hot cakes….
So Latona made a deal with Verisgn and got Germany TV down from some crazy premium to a more “sensibly” priced $1000 per year.
There were many geos – including Spain.TV – also sensible premium – $1000 and Thailand.TV – also $1000.. One was owned by Verisign, the second by a fellow domainer and Thailand.Tv wa owned by me with a reserve of just $12k on mine.
The auction was like a death march for .tv. Latona was selling names/geos/you name it from so many different cctlds….but when ANY SINGLE .TV was mentioned, not only WERE none sold, not only did none get CLOSE to the reserve, NONE EVEN GOT A SINGL BID!!!!!!!!!!!
That was it for me after trying to always put a positive (note – positive, not piump & dump)spin on .Tv . The verynext day , I put Thailand.Tv and Sanjose on the chop and sold for next to nothing compared to what I had been brainwaahed to belive was that those were $100k plus names……….
Ack, I know a Thailand based investor that wanted that domain.
I’m becoming more and more convinced that domain auctions are the absolute worst method to value domains. It’s like comping my house against a foreclosure. There’s a ton of inventory and that does depress prices. But if you came to my door asking to buy my house at that price you’d be laughed at.
“I’m becoming more and more convinced that domain auctions are the absolute worst method to value domains. It’s like comping my house against a foreclosure.”
Andrew, regardless of what you think about auctions the point is the .tv market barely exists at the moment. What we have is a situation where a name like this is near unsaleable and most people who have speculated on .tv have very heavy losses (hence no interest in buying more names like this). The problem isn’t auctions, the problem is that paying renewals on a name like this makes very little sense.
I don’t want to argue about the value of domain names. What I will say is that TampaBay.tv received an offer of around $75,000 within the last 24 months.
Receiving offers means JACK!!!! I have received many offers in superhigh figures from people who were looking to pump and dump.
Unless a sale happens – (and this is just me) what was the offer worth??!!
BTW Chef,
that name u wanted to buy off me for 1k – I sold it yesterday for 4k.
Regarding 75k that would actually be the highest report sale ever for a .tv (highest ever reported in the past is $62.5k for rt.tv). If a 75k offer was genuinely on the table then it is a pretty big mistake not to take that offer.
Congrats on your sale James, that’s awesome. James, you know the owner of TampaBay.tv. I have no reason not to believe what they have told me.
Anything is possible, heck poker.org just sold for $1 mil which is roughly $800k ish more than any previous .org sale.
You are wrong on TampaBay.tv Snoop, that name would certainly garner interest in 3 figures possibly 4. There are still buyers for Geo.tv especially those with lower premium renewals.
Wasnt it just last week that Finster couldnt get more than a $100 offer for Ft Worth?
I would say that the geo market is overhyped over drenched and there are MUCH MUCH faster ways to make money on the web than to decide to go into the publishing/directory/news business…..
And much less expensive too
“Snoop, that name would certainly garner interest in 3 figures possibly 4. There are still buyers for Geo.tv especially those with lower premium renewals.”
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A $1000 renewal isn’t low in my view.
“What I will say is that TampaBay.tv received an offer of around $75,000 within the last 24 months.”
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2 years ago was back in boom times, even so if that was a cash offer the owner should have jumped at it.
Oh I had not checked thought TampaBay was unusually low at $100. $1000 is a another story.
Nearly nothing is more pathetic to see domainers try to develop their “properties”.
The simple facts are: Domains without proper backlinks have no real value for search engines, and a website with a few pages of unique content has extremely little value for search engines.
Therefore, to make money out of a domain, you need:
1. a significant backlink structure that is difficult to obtain (in fact way more rare than so called premium domains). Even serious developers are too lazy to work on it
2. a website development strategy, I mean a niche website model you can develop for many niches. Strategy means hand coding, not blabla or a stupid php script
I am not sure the domainer mob, after years of easy parking incomes are able to start working. They are so fat they can’t move anymore.
Good luck anyway
Stereotyping without factual backup.
Patrick,
Does seem that some people want to crucify you just for changing your plans, as if we al dont do that daily on many matters.
I guess the difference is that when you have a blog & followers then anything you say can come back to haunt you but i definitely would not feel bad or any sense or responsibility to anyone just for changing your plan.
Developing is not for everyone & Geo development definitely is not for everyone due to the scale of site & content needed, sales plan & sales team needed & of course the need to have a base / presence in the Geo location which kills many Geo plans.
From the outside i imagine you announced the venture before you had a solid plan but once you looked into it then you realized the size of the project & how it would take over your life.
Regards the pressue you say you felt fromt he ‘.tv domainer community’
Some .tv owners seem that comments as you showing a huge Ego but i think i see your point here.
Although .Tv’s are used worldwide, in huge numbers, by top brands, more & more daily (as you know from the research we shared on developed .tv’s)
But .TV domainers constantly act as though just 1 new venture could make their domains worth more, especially if a ‘sperstar domainer’ is involved or comments on it.
I think most of this comes fromt he US based domainers who seem to value domain bloggers & celebrity domainers opinions so much more and since it does seem there is less .Tv usage in the US compared to other parts of the world.
Domainers in other areas could not care less if 1 .tv venture has been cancelled as they see & use .tv’s daily so know such domains are being used and are in demand.
When i heard that you were scraping this venture thne i said to a friend how the thread would turn into the usual chance to bash .tv & it has, shame many of the opinions are way off but everyone is entitled to their opinion.
Best of Luck with future projects Patrick.
Oh & tell Cate to sell TampaBay.tv if she gets mid $xx,xxx+ offers! It’s a nice domain but not great and renewal is higher than many better US Geo’s. IMHO
**PS – Hope you will be doing a future thread on how well used .tv’s are worldwide using those sites examples i gave you! (only joking, no pressure)
Take it easy,
R
Thank you so much for your comments Ray.
I actually believe I had a solid plan. Something that I could never account for was going to 6 conferences since taking on the project. After spending time with others in our industry and some new opportunities present themselves I realized I wanted to be more of a “domainer” and not an in the trenches Geo developer. I will definitely try my hand on smaller development projects, but nothing that requires me to hit the streets.
I also want to thank you for the data provided over the last couple of months. The information will not fall on def ears.
Your post would be one thing more pathetic. Too bad no links to your coded websites. But the development mob is all talk.
Developing quality web sites is not easy
I know this is a bit naughty, but with all the talk of Tampa I can’t resist…
I picked up TampaBayCity.com a few years ago. Is that meaningful / worth anything please? (I am not American).
TIA.
- Paul
Chef, left a comment on everythinbg.tv on this. please read when u have a moment