However, there are many people who don’t necessarily have dog walker contacts, and they rely on sites like Craigslist to find dog walkers and companies who offer dog walking services in addition to other pet-related services. There are only a couple of websites that cater specifically to connecting dog owners and dog walkers.

With dog walkers earning up to $20 per dog for a 15 minute walk (sometimes even more), I believe there is a big reason why dog walkers should advertise, and with the launch of my latest targeted website, they have a place to advertise by city. With a whole lot of help of my from designer, Mike McAlister of Six One Five Design, I launched DogWalker.com, a domain name I recently acquired.

As with every website launch, there are still a few issues to fix. Some of the search functionality isn’t working as well as we’d like, and I need to get advertisers to fill the directory! This is the launch of my first automated directory, and I am eager to see if this will take off, since I have a few other names that would do well with this set up.

Here are a couple of pages you can visit to see how things will look:

• Houston Dog Walkers (landing page set up for SEO purposes)
• All Dogs Gym & Inn (dog walker listing)

I have a thousand DogWalker.com magnets, and I will be paying a graduate student to hand them out in a few parks in NYC on the next few weekends. I figure if dog owners are visiting the site, dog walkers will want to advertise. I also plan to email dog walkers to let them know about the new site and hopefully sign up some advertisers. Perhaps local pet stores will permit me to leave magnets at their register. The beauty is that the marketing of the site should remain fairly inexpensive.

When you have a moment, please have a look at the site and let me know if you find any glitches. Any suggestions/recommendations on improving search functionality and SEO would be appreciated. I am considering adding a autocomplete search feature to help direct visitors to the correct city listing pages.

Next up… DogTrainer.com

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Penticton, B.C., Canada (PRWEB) November 19, 2009 — Canadian based NetIncome Ventures, an established domain investment and web development company founded and headed by serial entrepreneur Garry Chernoff has publicly launched dozens of shopping websites earlier this week just in time for the holiday shopping season. The e-commerce websites include HockeyJerseys.com, BabyMonitors.com, FaxMachines.com and dozens more of niche specific e-commerce shops featuring hundreds of thousands of products.

Garry’s vision for the websites into 2010 and beyond is to become leaders in their respective niches by featuring a complete product catalog where each and every visitor can research and purchase exactly what they are looking for in one place and for the most affordable prices around. NetIncome Ventures has already teamed up with leading retailers and includes products from Buy.com, Boscov’s, OnlineSports.com, Fans Edge, ShoppersChoice.com, The Shopping Channel, Overstock.com, NBC Universal Store, Autogeek.com and hundreds of other strategic partners and popular internet based discount stores.

NetIncome Ventures Inc currently owns thousands of targeted and category leading keyword domain names such as BridalShop.com, Beads.com, CellShop.com, MensWear.com, Replica.com, Runners.com, SportsGear.com, Veils.com, etc. and plans to develop and launch at least a few hundred more e-commerce shops by March of 2010. Mike Cohen of WannaDevelop.com and NYC based Logiko group have been coordinating all web development and marketing efforts for NetIncome Ventures newly launched shopping e-businesses.

“We have put in a lot of time and effort into these websites the past few month’s and with Garry Chernoff’s guidance and vision from day one we have been able to accomplish a truly great thing here with this week’s launch and mass deployment of dozens of category specific websites on targeted keyword domains that can now serve visitors from across the globe as a one stop shop featuring product catalogs of up-to 100,000 or even more relevant and unique items on each and every website.”

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PITCHFest: Five hand-picked applicants will present a five minute summary of their business idea that will “enhance the value of parked or developed domain names by driving increased traffic and/or revenue.” Presenters will speak to a panel of judges, as well as the DomainFest audience. The winner will receive a trophy.

LAUNCHFest: Prior to the conference, applicants can choose one of ten domain names (owned by sister company Portfolio Brains, LLC), and five selected applicants will present a business plan to judges describing how they will build a business on that domain name. The judges will select a winner based on the following: creativity, viability, originality, and revenue potential.

The winner will have the opportunity to develop their business on the domain name “subject to a pre-determined lease arrangement.” Oversee.net will waive the first year of lease payments and the winner will have the right to lease the domain name for five years, after which the winner can buy it.

I like how PitchFest is structured. It’s a five minute pitch for five newly launched (I assume) companies, and hopefully there will be some innovative presenters. However, I think LaunchFest is a fantastic idea – for Oversee. Firstly, while Planners.com is a very good domain name that sold for $12,000 in 2004, I think the others are mostly average domain names and don’t see a home run in the list.  Below are the list of names they are allowing applicants to choose from, along with the purchase price:

• Planners.com    $125,000
• AdvertiseHere.com   $125,000
• StartABusiness.com  $75,000
• GoOut.com    $75,000
• RealEstateNetwork.com     $50,000
• BoostSales.com     $50,000
• SiteFinder.com     $25,000
• WebIncentives.com     $25,000
• AnythingForSale.com    $10,000
• DailyPicks.com    $10,000

Not only is Oversee.net going to get an annual lease deal (after the first year free), which will presumably generate more revenue than the parked name makes now, but they are going to have someone build these brands for them. If the brand fails and the site goes out of business, it will end up driving more revenue back to the parked page from the previous development (and Oversee wins). If the site is a success and the owner wants to buy it, Oversee will earn money on the lease and/or get their desired sales price in 5 years or less (and Oversee wins again).

If we were talking about out of the park home run names that wouldn’t be for sale under normal circumstances (like RealEstate.com or GiftBaskets.com), then it’s a great opportunity. However, I don’t think these names are that special. In the end, the winner is Oversee.net rather than the applicants, in my opinion. Perhaps a cash reward for development, scrapping the annual lease agreement, or adding better domain names from which to choose would make this a winning idea.

What do you think?

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A domain investor friend of mine forwarded me an email he received from Network Solutions today, with the following message:

Subject: The Domain You Searched For Is Still Available: On Sale Now!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.net    Buy Now for ONLY $19 >>
Available as of 11/09/2009

Domain names are how people find you online, how you express yourself through email or your website, and it’s what customers think of when trying to find you. Register yours today while it’s still available!

nsWebAddress™ packages include your domain name registration plus:”
….etc

I always assumed that domain registrars and companies used Whois lookup data for internal purposes, but I didn’t think a company would use it for marketing purposes. My friend doesn’t believe he did the look up from within an account at Network Solutions, so he was even more surprised that his search was emailed to him.

I know that companies monitor searches and other research, and I’ve warned people to be cautious when doing research, but it just seems a bit over the top when a company sends an email like this. It’s almost like, “don’t mind us looking over your shoulder, but you can buy that name you looked up the other day just in case you didn’t realize.“

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think this is right. I would really like to know how they got the person’s email address, but I can only assume they tracked his IP address to an account there. Personally, I use DomainTools for Whois lookups.

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When I was a NYU in 2002-03, I went to help a family friend clean the movie ride curtains at the Empire State Building since I lived less than a block away. For two days, we talked about how expensive the City was – especially for a grad student. My Dad’s friend recommended that I find some sort of product to sell and that I should sell it easily on Ebay. I looked around for a number of things – custom pencils (no margin), art (did some buying and selling) and finally I saw people selling domain names.

I would see names selling for a few hundred dollars, and when I went to Network Solutions, I saw that similar names were available for just $35.00. I bought my first name, and for the life of me I can’t remember what it was. I think it was a legal name with a hyphen. I remember I sold it after two auctions and broke even. Shortly thereafter, I learned about Godaddy’s less expensive registrations, and I began buying and selling newly registered domain names for 200-300%+ profit. It wasn’t a whole lot of money, but I continued to do it and reinvest all of my profits.

As the number of my customers grew, I began selling domain names in private and in bulk. Instead of selling 1 name for $30, I would sell 20 of them for $18/each. My profit margins were smaller, but my profits grew. With all of this, I continued to reinvest in my business, buying more newly registered domain names. I went to work at a Direct Marketing Agency in 2003 and continued to buy and sell domain names on the side, although there were times when I stopped doing it to focus on other things.

I later began to realize the value of keyword domain names, which was taught to me by Tasha Kidd, who also told me about domain parking. I had been looking at domain names as virtual pieces of land, but hadn’t really even considered monetization. Prior to this, I had focused primarily on “brandable” domain names, with some of my new registrations including BusinessMotels.com, GasolineExperts.com, and many more.

Sometime in early 2006, one of my clients recommended that I join DNForum. Up until that time I didn’t even realize there was an actual domain industry. Ironically, he told me that once I joined the forum, I probably wouldn’t sell him any more domain names cheaply. For some time, I continued to buy newly registered domain names, while selling them as quickly as possible… churning and burning through them.

It was on DNForum that I got my first big break. I saw a listing for the domain names Mortgaged.net, Mortgaged.org, Mortgaged.info, and Mortgaged.biz, and I bought it for what I believe is a few hundred dollars. I then did some research and found that Mortgaged.com was for sale for 4 figures from someone else, and I bought it – the purchase was my highest priced domain acquisition, and for the couple of days around then, I was nervous as hell. I hadn’t paid more than a few hundred dollars for a domain name ever. With some good luck, I was then able to flip the entire package for a profit, earning me more than I had made on any single deal before.

I continued to reinvest all of my profits as I started a new job as a Marketing Manager at AIG. I worked all day and came home to do more work in the evening – looking to make deals the entire time. One day in September of 2006, I bought TelephoneCall.com for $x,xxx, and a few weeks later, I flipped it for $20,000 at the TRAFFIC auction. I used the proceeds from that investment to acquire other domain names of higher value, and I continued to buy and sell – keeping taxes in mind (which is VERY important).

In October of 2007, I was able to leave my full time job at AIG and focus on growing my domain business. I literally started with a $35 domain investment in 2003, had zero technical or Internet background, and I have become a full time domain investor and developer. Fortunately, I learned about development, because I am able to do things I never thought I could do – such as changes to the blog, website development edits, and other very small coding projects.

While I do think times are arguably tougher than they’ve been anytime since the .com bubble, I still think there’s plenty of opportunity. I continue to earn a living buying great names at great prices and selling them at fair prices. I generate (growing) revenue from my developed websites, but I still primarily earn a living as a domain investor.

One of the reasons I happily blog every day is that over the last few years I’ve been lucky enough to receive advice from a wide range of domain investors, developers, designers, SEOs, venture capitalists, advertising executives…etc, and I am passionate about giving back. If it wasn’t for the advice of others, I wouldn’t be in the position I am in today, and I hope I can be helpful to those who can use it.

Just because you don’t have a huge bankroll and just because you didn’t start in 1996 is not a good reason for why you can’t be a successful domain investor today.

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