Mi.ke

Battle of the Domain Investors: $500, 1 Year, Who Wins?

Battle of the domain investors $500, 1 year, who wins?

TL;DR: Key Takeaways for Readers

  • The DNAcademy $500 Investor Challenge is designed for each participant, myself included, to buy and sell domain names over the course of one year, with the goal of earning as much profit as possible.
  • Six seasoned domain investors start with the same $500 modest starting investing budget and share everything: strategies, purchases, sales, and lessons via blogs, podcasts, and social media.
  • Our experiences are fully transparent and documented in this Google Sheet, giving you a real-time inside look at domain investing from the ground up.
  • The challenge seeks to educate, inspire, and engage anyone interested in domain investing by showing the highs, lows, and day-to-day decisions of real investors.

Leaderboard

(Open full Google Sheet and click on tabs at bottom for detail.)

What Is the DNAcademy $500 Investor Challenge?

This year-long competition challenges me and five other experienced domain investors, each starting with $500 in seed capital, to test our skills and strategies.

Over twelve months we try to outdo each other in generating profit by buying, managing, and selling domain names.

Our decisions and results are posted publicly for all to see making it equal parts competition and learning experience.

The competition is organized by GoDaddy’s Domain Academy (formerly DNAcademy), and runs from April 2025 to April 2026.

How the Challenge Works

  • Each investor starts with $500, no more no less.
  • We can pursue any legal domain investing strategy, such as hand registrations, auctions, flips, or holds ‒ as long as the domains are purchased and sold at GoDaddy, the contest sponsor.*
    *Some additional limitations apply to the two GoDaddy employees who are participating.
  • Every acquisition, sale, and tactic is shared transparently through podcasts, blogs, social media, and the spreadsheet.
  • Regular updates keep everyone posted on strategies, wins, losses, and key lessons.
  • The investor with the highest profit at the end of the challenge wins.

Purpose of the Challenge

  • Education: Prove how much is possible starting with minimal capital in domain investing. View what strategies and tactics are working (and not working).
  • Community: Share real-world lessons, encourage discussion, and foster learning in the domain community.
  • Inspiration: Demonstrate that with planning, patience, and smart moves anyone can make meaningful progress from a small starting point.

Follow Along With the Challenge

You can track progress, hear about sales and struggles, and learn in real time through these channels:

Quarterly Summaries

Below I will share my progress each quarter to keep you up-to-date with numbers and key lessons:

Q1 Summary (April through June 2025)

Q1 Results: My first few months in the challenge were spent researching trends and targeting underpriced domains. I prioritized GoDaddy Closeout domains at the $5 (plus registration) pricing tier.

While I initially priced all my domains at retail levels at Afternic, I quickly determined that to win this contest I would need to “turn and burn” domains at a wholesale price to other investors for a small markup.

One big bet of $415.20 for ElevateFund.com brought in a sales price of $888, and a profit of $473. I could only risk this amount because of the smaller sales I was making.

Domains Acquired: 8
Domains Sold: 7
Total Profit: $1,269

Takeaways:

  • Daily searching ExpiredDomains.net and GoDaddy Auctions revealed only 7 Closeout domains I was able to purchase in this 3-month period.
  • Don’t buy crap. Only invest in domains other investors will find value in.
  • Small wins allowed me to make a larger win.

Q2 Summary (July through September 2025)

Q2 Thoughts: I’m finding very few Closeout domains worth investing in, which might be caused by the “summer lull.”

Because I have more capital than my competitors, I’m now looking at auctions where I can get a 2X wholesale sales price to another investor that gives them a 20X to 50X return. That’s a win-win.

I also switched how I was looking for domains from Closeouts to Auctions.

Domains Acquired: 20
Domains Sold: 19
Total Profit: $2,207

Takeaways:

  • Over the last stretch, I shifted my focus from $5 Closeout domains to $1 Auction names with zero competition. The goal was simple: grab them for $1 plus the registration or transfer fee of about $12, for a total cost of roughly $13.22.
  • I kept using NamePros as my main promotional channel, with an 𝕏 post driving traffic to the NamePros thread. When I started explaining why I liked a domain, something interesting happened. People would read the breakdown and often agree with the logic — then buy the name from me. I shared data like how many TLDs were taken, how many companies were using the term on LinkedIn, whether there was any alliteration, and how it compared to similar names in the HugeDomains portfolio. That kind of context seemed to really resonate with other investors. Here’s an example of an explanation.
  • If a domain was solid but not quite worth a $99 price on its own, I’d bundle it. I’d sell one name for $99 and then push a second, related domain along with it for free. It helped move inventory that was “good, not great” without discounting everything.
  • I also learned a painful but memorable lesson: always wear my glasses when bidding on my phone. I thought I was buying FreshVision.com, but what I actually won was FreshVison.com. I even sold it to another investor before realizing the mistake and ended up refunding them. Not my finest moment — but definitely one I won’t forget.
  • I kept one domain purchase (Snowplow.us) for outbound, but after about 15 tries and no interest I lost motivation. I’m holding it long term for the time being, listing it for sale at $950 but happy to sell it at retail for $400-500.

Q3 Summary (October through December 2025)

Q3 Thoughts: I’ve built up a sizable lead, and the competition has started to lose some of its appeal, at least from my perspective.

Without the same cash flow, my competitors can’t really keep up in the same way anymore. As a result, my own pace has naturally slowed down to match the new level of pressure in the market.

Domains Acquired: 6
Domains Sold: 6
Total Profit: $1,473

Takeaways:

  • I’ve also noticed how much competition affects my behavior. When I was updating the spreadsheet more often, I was hunting for deals every day, constantly feeding the pipeline. With fewer updates now, I’m not searching as aggressively, which naturally means less inventory and, not surprisingly, fewer sales.
  • Over this period, I picked up 6 domains at auction: 4 at $1, 1 at $32, and 1 at a hefty $581.
  • That $581 name turned into a $950 sale, which is a good reminder that a higher buy-in can still make sense. A near 2X return on capital at that level creates a much larger profit in absolute dollars than flipping a $13 name for $99, even if the multiple on the cheaper name looks better on paper.
  • My Cyger Says newsletter has become my main channel for selling domain names. The spreadsheet includes links to specific examples for anyone who wants to dig in. The newsletter gives me space to fully explain why I like certain domains and to share detailed metrics and context. Things like data points, reasoning, and use cases all fit naturally there. For simplicity, I include a direct checkout link via Afternic. It’s first come, first served: whoever checks out first gets the name, which adds a bit of urgency to each send.

Q4 Summary (January through April 2026)

Initially, my personal goal was simple: turn $500 into $6,000 within a year.​

If there are no new purchases and only the remaining two domains sell (not counting the two being held for outbound: VegasBankruptcyLawyers.com and Snowplow.us), there’s a good chance I’ll reach that target.​

That said, the plan is not to go completely cold turkey. The search will probably continue about once a week, just enough to keep an eye out for opportunities without going back to daily hunting.​

Another helpful input has been the GoDaddy Premier Services email highlighting hot domains ending soon in auction. With a larger budget now, it’s possible to bid on some of these higher-value names and selectively go after domains that are genuinely worth more. (If you have a Premier Services account manager but are not receiving this almost daily email​, just ask to be added.)

Full update coming in April 2025.

Follow, learn, and let us see just how far $500 and the right mindset can go.