Tax time is always a stressful time. It takes quite a bit of time and energy getting paperwork prepared for the accountant, and of course there are financial considerations as well. Our tax returns and estimates have been filed, and it feels good to get that out of the way!

Joshua Strebel, CEO and Co-Founder of Pagely and Northstack, spoke at WordCamp Phoenix and shared an interesting story about how an expired domain name cost his company $57,000. He later shared the video of his WCP keynote via Twitter, and Adam Strong shared it with me:

The moral of the story is that domain registrants, including domain name investors, need to be mindful of their domain name renewals. Here are 5 things registrants should do to prevent domain names from expiring:

• Registrants should keep their correct email address on file with their domain registrar.
• Registrants should make sure registrar emails do not get caught by a spam filter or otherwise be unseen.
• A valid credit card should stay on file at the registrar, and the credit card should be updated with valid expiry date information before it expires.
• Setup auto-renew on domain names so they automatically renew each year.
• Renew domain names for several years in advance (and keep doing this periodically while adhering to the suggestions above).

At the end of the day, Joshua and his company were lucky to be able to recover the domain name. It seems like they caught the error in enough time that the domain name did not go to auction or otherwise get picked up by another registrant or even the registrar.

Throughout the years, I have been approached by numerous people asking me to be their domain investing mentor or asking for a referral to a mentor. I have not done any mentoring before, and while I appreciate the fact that someone thought of me for this, I don’t think looking for a personal mentor is the best idea. I want to share some of my thoughts on the idea of domain investment mentoring and why it’s probably not a good idea to seek out a mentor.

I tend to buy my most valuable domain names in private acquisitions. Oftentimes, the domain names I want to buy are owned by companies that no longer need these domain names. I have found that sometimes the domain names were acquired by the current registrant as a result of a corporate acquisition. If I have this information, I like to mention it in my offer or introductory email.

Company and brand name trends change over time. Sometimes, it seems like first names are popular brand names, sometimes it is made up words that are in vogue, and other times, it is every-day words that are trending for startup businesses and rebrands. As domain investors, it is important that we stay on top of naming trends because almost all of these new brands are going to need a domain name.