Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
Thomas A. Edison (1847 – 1931)

Many new domainers feel that the domain name train has left the station. They look at the pioneers like Rick Schwartz, Frank Schilling and Kevin Ham and think, “Those guys took all the good names. There’s nothing left. It was a one-time deal.” Is that true? Can you still get rich with domain names, or is it too late?

Sahar Sarid recently wrote a post comparing the domain market now to Florida real estate 80 years ago. In response, Steve of Alledia.com (an SEO club for Joomla users) commented:

Chances like this don’t come around very often. Domaining had its window 13 years ago. Fort Lauderdale property had its window 80 years ago. It may well be that there are no such opportunities available right now. One may develop next year or not for the next several years.

To be fair to Steve, many folks struggling to enter and succeed in the domain name market express the same frustrations.

True, a beginning domainer with a limited budget cannot acquire a Business.com or Applications.com type of domain name, and maybe not even BusinessApplications.com. Does that mean that opportunities to get rich do not exist?

I’ll write a post soon outlining some specific ways to find good domain names. It’ll be a good one, so stay tuned. In the meantime, let me point out some broad trends:

1. Population Growth. The human population continues to grow, creating increasing demand in every consumer sector. The world population is expected to grow to 9.4 billion by the year 2050, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Insane, huh? Of course only a small percentage of these will be internet users, but with the spread of internet-capable mobile devices and cheap laptops, that percentage will continue to increase.

2. Internet Evolution. The internet itself is still developing to say the least. If you count from the invention of the World Wide Web by Sir Tim Berners-Lee and others at CERN in Geneva in 1990 or so, then the web is in its teens. It’s an industry in its infancy, yet thundering ahead like a hurricane. Can you imagine declaring 17 years after the invention of electricity that the moment had passed and there were no further opportunities in electric devices?

3. Internet Users Growth. The number of people with part time or full time internet access continues to mushroom, especially in the developing world. There are a billion people with internet access now, and there will be 1.5 billion people with internet access by 2011, with the biggest growth in the online population occurring in Brazil, Russia, India and China, according to a new report by Jupiter Research.

4. New Technologies. New types of handheld devices, new internet browsers for mobile phones, and new internet services for mobile users are all going to dramatically change the way people access and view the internet in coming years; these trends will also open up the internet to the masses of people who have cell phones but no computers.

5. Domain Trends. Like the World Wide Web, the doman name industry is constantly developing. Important new ccTLDs are being introduced, many more people are taking up domaining as a hobby or full time job, media companies are being formed based on domain names, and price appreciation is extending to previously quiet sectors.

In the next twenty years technology will evolve in ways that will boggle our minds. As for the domain name market, it’s busy and getting busier. When a market is busy it creates opportunity. As Thomas Edison pointed out in the quotation up top, opportunity is a function of the work you put in (and keeping an open mind). Study, learn and don’t shut yourself off to new ways of thinking.

Lastly, let me change the direction of this piece and point out, since we’re speaking of opportunity, that every sunrise grants you an opportunity to be a better human being. I hope that you achieve financial wealth and success in the domain name industry. More important than that, however, is that you keep peace with your own soul and be a force for positive change in the world. That’s what we really need, and that will benefit you much more than any domain name.

Hint: It’s Not the Number of Domain Names in Your Portfolio

An article on MSNBC describes the surprising findings of a study conducted by The Associated Press and MTV on the nature of happiness among America’s young people. This extensive survey presented more than 100 questions to 1,280 people ages 13-24.

What single thing do you think makes these young people the most happy? Cool clothes? A new bike or car? Music? An iPod? Being popular?

None of those. 73 percent of the respondents – almost three quarters – said that the thing that makes them happiest is their parents. Next was spending time with family in general, followed by spending time with friends, and then being with a significant other.

Wow! Who’d have thought?

The article covers the results of the survey in detail, so I won’t repeat all of that here. Instead I’d like to focus on the implications of this survey for domainers, and for internet entrepreneurs in general.

A Double Work Week

It’s no secret that entrepreneurs work long hours.

Research carried out by Durham University indicates that British entrepreneurs work much longer hours than the average employee. Twenty-eight per cent of the entrepreneurs work between 41-50 hours per week, 27% work between 51-60 hours per week and 26% work in excess of 60 hours a week.

What about entrepreneurs in developing nations? See this article, about two entrepreneurs in India. Nishant Sinha, 24, and Aditya Singhal, 25, founded Transwebtutors.com in their New Delhi basement. Both of them work at least 100 hours a week trying to develop their business.

And for some real craziness, check out this article from the Wall Street Journal’s StartupJournal.com. Among respondents to their telephone poll, one in five business owners read email and other work-related documents while in the bathroom, and about half did so while driving a car! About 20% said they worked during dinner four to five nights a week, and about 20% work a double work week, or 80 hours. Nearly 51% work on holidays and 47% work during designated family time.

Why We Do It

I work long hours too, and I understand the reasons:

1. Ambition. Entrepreneurs, by our very nature, are driven to succeed. We want to build something and to be in charge, and that takes time.

2. Always open. For internet entrepreneurs in particular, the workplace never shuts down. The opportunity to build your business, to get some work done, to make some money, is there 24 hours a day, and as a result it’s hard to regulate your hours.

3. No commute. To make matters worse, many of us work from home, so all we have to do is turn on the computer, day or night, and we’re at work. Sure, it’s a pleasure not to have to commute, but the flipside is that it can be impossible to tear yourself away from your work.

4. Security. We entrepreneurs are not bound by the constraints of a “job”, but neither are we afforded the security of a regular paycheck. Doing it for yourself is inherently risky, so we are driven to work hard in order to overcome that risk.

5. Family needs. Many of us tell ourselves that our long working hours are in fact in consideration of our families. We want to provide for them, make sure all their needs are taken care of. Forget the cool clothes and the iPod, we want to make sure they can afford medical and dental care, good food, college…

Wanting to take care of your family is admirable. Nothing wrong with that.

Unless…

I have a one year old daughter. I work from home and in fact my computer station is right in the center of the house. My daughter often crawls over to my desk and pulls herself up, trying to get my attention.

I don’t ever want to be so into my work, so obsessed, that I can’t take some time to pick my daughter up, bounce her on my knee, play with her, or take her outside for a walk in the yard.

Go back and read the results of that MSNBC study again. Even in America, where there are so many ways for kids to be entertained or distracted, what makes them happier than anything else is spending time with their parents.

Domainers and entrepreneurs, remember this. Your children won’t be any happier if you have 10,000 domains in your portfolio than if you have 1,000. They won’t be happier if you are making $1 million a year than if you’re making $50,000. They might be more financially secure, but they won’t be happier. What they need is you: your time, your attention, your love.

We entrepreneurs want to have it all. For those of us with families, maybe we already do.