My Thoughts on Michael Rosenblum’s “Biggest Mistake”

Michael Rosenblum  has had a successful career as a television producer, and he shared a story in the Huffington Post to which many of us over the age of 30 (or so) can relate. In the article, Rosenblum  recalls some of the domain names he could have owned back in 1992.

An intern working with Rosenblum  discussed how he could have a domain name for a project on which Rosenblum  was working. Rosenblum  recalled a conversation in which the intern said, “We can make a URL and website for you any way you want and call it.. Oh, Broadcast.com, or TV.com or Television.com or News.com. And you’ll own the website and the URL in exchange.”

Yes, there were lots of domain name opportunities that many of us missed in 1992. I was 13 years old in 1992, but there were still plenty of other excellent domain names available for the next several years. There’s no point in thinking about what could have been.

In the few years that followed, many people bought excellent keyword domain names like the ones referenced by Rosenblum. He might have been able to make millions of dollars by buying one of those domain names back then, but there is no guarantee of that. Perhaps he would have been lured by a 5 or 6 figure offer a short time later and sold it for short term riches. Perhaps he would still be holding onto the domain name hoping a better offer comes some day. Perhaps the domain name would have accidentally expired and instantly registered by Yun Ye. Hindsight is always 20/20.

For many of us, even some of the younger people, there were opportunities that we missed. There are many people who are active in the domain investment space who still see opportunities to buy great domain names, and money is made daily. For instance, someone who bought two letter or two and three number .com domain names in the last 5 years would be handsomely rewarded today.

Most of us have a touch of regret for not buying and holding onto great domain names back in the 1990s. In my humble opinion, there is still a lot of money to be made from domain names, and there are quite a few people proving that every day.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn
  1. Eliot – It’s Rosenblum, not Rosenberg. Second, it was not the value of the URL, it was that they would have built for me Broadcast.com based on my content. You know who got that instead. And sold it to Yahoo when Yahoo was Yahoo.

    • Very sorry about that typo (which has been corrected).

      I read your HuffPo article from the lens of a domain investor.

      I know the Broadcast.com story.

      What sports team would you have bought had you had a similar path? 🙂

    • As Elliot Sliver points out , we’ve all had plenty of opportunities we’ve missed and said “I’m an idiot. I’d be a millionaire today” but truthfully that’s kind of an idiotic thing to say too.
      There’s no-telling what you would have or could have done had you said “yes” to that particular part of the opportunity.

      Mark Cuban’s billions didn’t come from him saying “yes” once
      . . . he probably said “no” more times. 🙂

  2. I bought my first domains in 1996 if I recall, correctly. I was 14 and working 25 hours a week (the age max in KY at that time) to help my mom out with bills and buy text-books each semester for the private highschool where my $5800/year tuition was fortunately scholarship. I saw a real trend but I didn’t have the same conviction others had. When I was 17 and had a choice to hold on to the 20 or so I had coming up for renewal or go on spring break with my friends I opted to let those drop. I doubt all of them were worth keeping but at least a few had 6 figures + potential I think (knowing what I do now). Regret? Sure. Probably among the most expensive $900 vacations ever taken!
    Definitely among the most costly decisions I ever personally made.

    But Eliot’s right, the opportunity its still there.

  3. While some domain investors may lament their “would have, could have, should haves”, opportunity is only lost if you stop looking for it. The domain landscape changes everyday as ‘new everything’ becomes the general trend, just scan TechCrunch every few days. The lessons domain investing teaches opens up a whole world of opportunities even though they may lie in other industries and pursuits. They may be more highly visible to domain investors as they often run parallel to our industry. Apps, SaaS companies, The gig economy, sharing economy, Uber everything, etc., they all are next door neighbors overlapping the domain economy daily and offering new opportunity.

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