January 22, 2023, Issue 743 of Bimin Daily.

It’s the New Year, so I’m writing this article to bring cheer to everyone.

The bull market is expected to arrive within a year, so let’s warm up first.

If we count from September 28, 2007, when I spent 1 yuan to register a domain name called PH777.cn, my amateur domain name investment journey has been going on for 17 years, but today, when most of my peers are financially independent, I am still not financially independent. Whenever I think of this, I can't sleep all night, and I feel extremely guilty and ashamed.

What went wrong? Why am I still struggling to make ends meet when there are so many wealthy people everywhere?

What am I doing wrong?

I am old and will soon exit the stage of history.

You are the sun at eight or nine in the morning, and the world belongs to you.

And I will turn my painful lessons into a sunset, shining on your young faces, hoping that you will become a little more mature as a result.

Lesson 1: Be poor and stay poor

As an early Internet user and owner of 7 QQ accounts, I actually noticed domain names as early as 2003-2004. At that time, Tencent was not making much money and Baidu was just starting out. Internet users mainly relied on remembering domain names, such as 18girl, Happysky, etc. I thought domain names were interesting and I wanted to make a website for fun. However, faced with dozens or hundreds of registration and renewal fees, I backed off.

Why did I register my first domain name in 2007? Because at that time, CN domain name was on sale and it only cost 1 yuan to register for a year. So even though I was still a moonlighter at that time, I still squeezed out more than 10 yuan from my teeth to register a domain name.

If you are poor, you should be low-key and accumulate capital patiently.

But I was too young at that time and didn’t understand this principle.

I remember when I was in my second job, the regional manager saw that I was very talented and came to talk to me specifically to get to know me.

A colleague called me over and pointed to a short fat man and introduced him to me, saying, "This is our regional manager, his last name is Zhang." I said, "Then you should call him Mr. Zhang." Mr. Zhang looked unhappy when he heard this, and smiled awkwardly and said, "Just call me Xiao Zhang."

I forgot what we talked about afterwards, and I felt like I was in trouble at that moment.

Later, he really tricked me several times.

This kind of accident happened many times during my subsequent working life, keeping me poor.

Therefore, you must be low-key, you must keep your head down, and you must not be self-righteous or think you are very great.

Don't think that you are the chosen one and look down on others when you are poor.

On the surface, it may seem like I made a slip of the tongue or couldn't speak well, but deep down I just thought I was awesome.

What investment does a poor person make?

First you need to gain a firm foothold and have a source of income.

In fact, there were still many opportunities to enter the domain name market in 2007. But I was too poor at that time.

Of course, in addition to having a certain amount of funds, investment vision is also extremely important.

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Lesson 2: Investment Vision

Vision is something that comes from practice and communication with top people.

I actually understand this principle quite well. For example, when I was playing a certain game in the past, because I invested a lot of time in it, I was pulled into a team by a group of veterans. I played the most difficult dungeons and got the best equipment, which made me one of the first tier of game players.

But when I registered the domain name in 2007, I never thought that I could make money from the domain name. I just wanted to make a website and put ads to make money.

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If you don’t even have the vision to see the investment opportunities in domain names, how can you make money from it?

My dream when I was little was to open an internet cafe. When I grew up, my dream was to build a website and earn 10,000 yuan a month from advertising. Then I wouldn't have to work, which would be great.

Because my dream back then was to build a website, I didn’t have a deep understanding of domain names, and I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a domain name forum, so naturally I couldn’t get in touch with other excellent players.

Looking back now, the domain names I registered in the early days are also a mess, with all kinds of miscellaneous rice. This is the result of working behind closed doors without external communication.

Lesson 3: Path Dependence

Why did I still make some money?

Everything turned around in 2011, when Yiming China suddenly launched an event offering registration of a .cn domain name for 5 yuan.

I was still short of money at the time, but I still gritted my teeth and spent more than 200 yuan to register dozens of domain names.

Maybe it was because the domain name industry was on the rise at that time, the domain names I registered actually sold quite well, and one of the domain names with the COM.CN suffix actually sold for over ten thousand yuan. This transaction was a huge shock to me, because I had only obtained this domain name four months ago.

I later analyzed the domain names that sold well and found two patterns.

A correct rule: Game domain names sell well because I have a better understanding of the game industry.

A wrong rule: I registered cn\com.cn, the registration and renewal fees were very cheap, and the selling price was also good, which proved that cn\com.cn domain names have a bright future. China is rising, and cn domain names are rising. Although they cannot surpass com, it is only a matter of time before they catch up.

This correct rule has benefited me a lot in the future.

This wrong rule caused me to fall into countless traps later.

Because the first success came from the .cn suffix, not only did I miss the main battlefield of domain names, the .com suffix, but I also had to hold a lot of .cn tuition fees, which I finally had to throw away after renewing it for many years.

This is the path dependence after making money. It’s not that the cn suffix is ​​good, but because I only have the cn suffix.

I became addicted to the cn suffix, just as I became addicted to certain projects many years later.

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Lesson 4: Missed Opportunities

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In 2015, the unprecedented super bull market in the history of domain names began.

​At this time, I had just lost money in the currency market, which I was not familiar with, and became a pauper again.

​In order to join this bull market, I borrowed tens of thousands of yuan to enter the market.

Fortunately, I had accumulated some domain names before, so I could sell them to make some money.

​XDF.CC was sold at a high price (actually it only sold for tens of thousands of yuan), and some other CN domain names were also sold.

​I finally have some funds to play with bulk domain names.

​In addition, I also invested heavily in new suffixes such as ME and VC. Because I acted early, I got a lot of good three-digit products at low prices.

But unfortunately, I was too greedy and kept fantasizing, so I didn’t sell at a high price. A bunch of good stuff brought me very little profit.

​I love falling in love with my investments so much that I can’t bear to let them go.

I have made this mistake many times before and will probably continue to make it in the future.

Sometimes I suspect that someone as infatuated as me is not suitable for investing at all.

Reporter: Nangong Yuan, how much money do you make from domain names?

Me: Less than 10 million.

Reporter: How much exactly?

Me: 15.28w.