Interview with Eric Borgos – I have asked various parties within the domain industry to take part in some interviews to give us a little background about themselves, where they see the industry heading and how they feel the current market for domain names are our eighteenth interview is by Eric Borgos.
Eric Borgos is the President of Impulse Communications, Inc. which owns over 5000 domain names and 300 websites. He bought most of his domains back in the 1990s and has been selling and developing them ever since. In 2007 he sold his Bored.com network of websites for $4.5 million and last year sold a package of 4000 of his domains for $1.3 million. Eric gives an inside look at his various business ventures on his blog at impulsecorp.com.
Don’t Forget to check out all the other Interviews completed on RobbiesBlog.com
Mike Mann, Darren Cleveland, Monte Cahn, Braden Pollock, Craig Rowe, Xavier Buck, Jodi Chamberlain, Fred Mercaldo, Tommy Butler, Michael Castello, Rob Grant, Tom Chapman, Ira Zoot, Victor Pitts, Shane Cultra, Nico Zeifang , Chris from AntiCareer.com aswell as todays interview by Eric Borgos.
1) What are your current thoughts on the Domain Aftermarket? i.e. Sales and Enquiries etc – General Mood of Domainers / End users?
My domain sales have been going well. I am selling just as many domains as I did in the past few years, but the prices are a little lower. Also, many time buyers say they don’t have the cash to pay my asking price, so I offer to finance the sale to the buyer with only a small down payment.
2) Where do you see GTLDS in 3 years time?
I think all the new domain extensions will just cause more confusion for the general public, and .com will still be king. Some of the extensions may become popular for specific marketing purposes, but any major company is still going to use .com for their primary domain.
3) What are you or your companies investing in? i.e. Dot Com only Domains, Typo – etc?
I only buy generic .com domains. For example, I recently bought Hoaxes.com for $5000 and SchoolPsychologist.com for $3000.
4) Do you believe in Parking or Developing?
None of my domains get any significant type-ins, so parking has not been worthwhile for since 4-5 years ago. I used to make a lot of money from it though. I do have a bunch of my low quality domains parked at theparkingplace.com , and few of my better ones parked at ddc.com. I would much rather develop my domains instead of parking them, although I have not found a good way to do this yet. I have built thousands of minisites, but so far those are making almost nothing, and I have built several more extensive sites, but those are not making money either.
5) What is your favourite domain personally or company owned?
I used to own Bored.com, but I sold that 5 years ago so the favorite domain I own now is Dumb.com, which has similar content on it to what I used to have on Bored.com.
6) If you were starting out in the domain space today what are your 3 top tips?
1. I would only buy .com domains, since those are much easier to sell.
2. I would not waste my time on expired/dropped domains. Buying low value domains involves a lot of time and effort for a very small potential profit.
3. I would try to buy some premium domains at auctions or from private sellers and then try to flip them. It can’t hurt to make a low offer for a domain. You never know what the seller will take. I have found that asking price does not mean much.
7) What’s the next big thing that your companies are working on?
I always have dozens of projects in development. Right now I am working on mobile app versions of many of my sites, and am also creating new sites that use technologies such neural networks, facial recognition, social influence ranking, and computer vision.
8) Where do you see yourself in 10 years time?
Hopefully much richer, but still doing the same kind of things I am doing now. I love working from home, and I love creating new sites, so I don’t expect that to change.
9) What has been your biggest challenge in the domain business?
Now that domain parking is almost dead, and I have not had very good results with domain development, it makes it a lot riskier for me to buy domains. It used to be that I could always park a good domain and make some return on my investment, but now I make zero per month from it, so it is a lot bigger risk. I need to make sure I can always at least sell the for what I paid for it.
10) What do you feel has been your largest accomplishment in the Business / Personally?
My biggest accomplishment is building a multi-million dollar business from nothing over the past 15 years, all the time working from home and doing what I love. I can never imagine working for anybody else ever again, so I appreciate the freedom that being a domainer has given me.
I would like to say a big Thank You to Eric Borgos for taking part in this interview for RobbiesBlog.com – Please check out Eric Borgos sites over at ImpulseCorp.com and Dumb.com