Bye Bye Bido

Technical issues with the site has seen Bido.com, the new domain auction site, close it's doors today following a disastrous experience when auctioning the name fixedloans.com earlier this week.

I feel sorry for my friend Sahar who has put a lot of effort into making Bido work. He's stuck his neck out and launched something new that had considerable promise.

Whether it's ever going to be a viable model, I couldn't say and to some degree, it's irrelevant anyway.

Whatever you might think of the one auction a day model, it was a unique idea and Sahar and his team had the guts to launch it and promote it against the calls of the naysayers (of which their were and are many).

To do anything online takes a bit of courage. To attempt a big site takes enormous courage.

Think about what's involved.

It's not just a case of throwing up a web page and hoping for the best.

There's the whole design, the business model that needs continual tweaking, the technical elements with databases, traffic generation, promotion, attracting high quality domains and of course, buyers with money to pay for the names.

When all the user sees is the finished site, it all looks very easy.

I know from my own experiences, that large sites take a lot of effort, skill and money.

At the start of the year, I posted that I'm concentrating on the development of two sites this year. They are both launched, but I am unhappy with both. One is going to do ok and will do what I expected of it, though it still needs some wortk and further investment.

The other, was more of a hobby site for me, but now that I've been through a fruitless development programme with such devastatingly disappointing results, I know I have a major decision to make.

That decision will either be, scrap the project and all the work that's gone into it, or just scrap the work that's already gone in and been paid for and redevelop.

Redevelopment looks very enticing, as I had a Eureka moment the other day and have found the exact tools I need to get my site up and running with all of the features I'd initially hoped for, but have so far failed to get.

I think the spend for this hobby site could end up being in the region of $15,000 - and this is just for a novelty hobby site I want to get built!

Yes, I believe there's a great revenue stream to be had from doing it, but with a $15,000 up-front risk, I am not certain.

Like any off-line business, there are always risks involved when you are building a potential income stream. It is not the same as just making a web site.

Personally, I still think that it would cost a lot more to set up an offline business. To put it in perspective, I couldn't get a year's rent on a small shop or industrial unit for $15,000 (£7500) where I live!

That's why focus is still the most important asset you can have if you're a domainer. It's taken me years to understand that.

Bido might not come back, but Sahar will and he'll be a lot stronger for it. I hope.

Good luck to anyone with the balls to have a go, because really, that's all that counts in this and any other industry.