I Bought a Domain Name at 2AM Again
Delusion
It's 2:17 AM on a Tuesday.
Everyone else in the house is asleep. The rational part of my brain clocked out around 10:30 PM. What remains is the part that makes terrible decisions with unearned confidence.
The domain registrar page is open. My credit card information is already autofilled because apparently I've done this enough times that Chrome is like "yeah mate, I know the drill."
My cursor hovers over the "Complete Purchase" button for taskflow-pro.com (not the real name, but close enough that I cringe to type it).
£11.99 per year.
That's nothing. That's two coffees from the petrol station. That's less than the meal deal I panic-bought at lunch because I forgot to eat breakfast.
What's actually happening here is I'm about to spend £11.99 on delusion.
I click the button.
Because I'm an idiot.
The Morning After
Six hours later, I'm standing in the kitchen making actual coffee, and I get the email:
Welcome! Your domain taskflow-pro.com is now active.
There's a moment—maybe three seconds long—where I remember doing this. The excitement feels foreign now, like finding someone else's shopping list in your pocket.
The person who bought that domain last night was convinced. He was going to solve a real problem. He was going to build something people would actually use. He was going to be one of those people who has a successful side project.
Morning me just stares out of the window, sipping coffee and can't remember if it's bin day.
The domain goes into a folder. The folder is called "Projects" which is the digital equivalent of that drawer in your kitchen where you put things you'll "deal with later."
There are currently 23 domains in there.
Twenty. Three.
Some of them I've completely forgotten about until GoDaddy sends me that annual "hey remember me?" email like an ex you ghosted.
Welcome to the Museum of Broken Dreams
Let me give you the tour. Mind the cobwebs.
streamlinehq.io (Purchased: January 2023, 1:43 AM)
- The Vision: A project management tool for IT teams. Finally, something that actually understands how chaos works. This will be the one.
- What Got Built: A landing page with a stock photo of people pointing at a whiteboard. You know the one. Everyone's nodding enthusiastically like they just solved world hunger with a Post-it note.
- Where It Died: User authentication. Specifically, the moment I Googled "how to do user authentication" and got 47 different answers, all of which assumed I knew what JWT meant.
- Current Status: Still live. I visit it by accident sometimes and feel personally attacked by my own optimism.
ritualcoffee.club (Purchased: March 2023, 2:31 AM)
- The Vision: A newsletter about coffee and intentional living. Deep dives into brewing methods. Premium subscriptions with actual coffee samples. I'd basically be James Hoffmann but with worse hair.
- What Got Built: Two newsletters. Both actually good. I'm not being modest—they were legitimately decent.
- Where It Died: Issue 3. I wrote 4,000 words about pour-over techniques. Then I looked at my subscriber count: 23 people. Four of those were me testing the signup flow on different devices. Three were my mum on different email addresses trying to be supportive.
- Current Status: Redirects to my actual blog now, which feels like robbing a corpse for spare parts.
teamexcellence.tools (Purchased: July 2024, 11:47 PM)
- The Vision: Simple tools for team leads. Templates, frameworks, an OKR tracker that doesn't make you want to fake your own death. £15/month. Easy.
- What Got Built: A Notion template. For myself. Which I used twice before remembering that I dont like Notion templates because they're never quite right and also templates are just depressing.
- Where It Died: The great "which framework should I learn" debate of July 2024. React vs Vue vs "maybe I should just use vanilla JavaScript and suffer like a real developer."
- Current Status: Coming up for renewal in two months. I'll keep it because letting it expire would mean admitting I was wrong, and we simply cannot have that.
fixthefundamentals.dev (Purchased: September 2024, 2:09 AM)
- The Vision: A blog about IT infrastructure. All the boring shit everyone gets wrong. Monitoring, patching, the stuff that matters. Written for people who need to fix things but don't have time to become experts in every single goddamn thing.
- What Got Built: A GitHub repo with a README that says "Coming Soon" (the developer's equivalent of "I'll start my diet on Monday"). One markdown file: "monitoring-101.md" with three bullet points. Not even good bullet points.
- Where It Died: Network diagrams. I'd need to draw network diagrams. Which means buying software. Which means researching software. Which means opening 40 tabs comparing diagramming tools. Which means I'm now reading Reddit threads from 2017 about whether Visio is "worth it."
- Current Status: The repo is private now because what if someone steals my three mediocre bullet points?
I have 19 more of these.
Nineteen.
Each one purchased with the same recipe: one part genuine skill, two parts delusional optimism, three parts complete denial about what a calendar actually means.
What's Actually Happening at 2 AM?
Here's what I've figured out: 2 AM Me is a completely different person than Day Me.
Day Me is:
- Answering emails that could've been Slack messages
- In meetings that could've been emails
- Answering Slack messages that could've been nothing
- Pretending to listen
- Doing actual work in the 47-minute gap between "urgent" interruptions
- Trying to remember if I've eaten today or just had coffee
- Wondering if everyone is just making it up as they go along
- Pretty sure they are
- Definitely sure they are
Day Me is in survival mode. Day Me is just trying to keep all the plates spinning while also being a functional human who remembers to wear matching socks.
2 AM Me has none of these constraints.
2 AM Me is pure unbridled hubris.
The house is quiet. Slack is silent (ish). Nobody needs anything from me. What's left is just me and the absolute conviction that I could definitely build a SaaS product if I just had the time.
At 2 AM, I'm not someone with a job and a family and a degree I'm allegedly working on.
I'm a founder.
I'm a builder.
I'm the guy who's going to crack the code that everyone else has somehow missed.
Except I'm not going to build anything at 2 AM.
I'm going to buy a domain and plan to build something.
Which is basically the same thing, right?
The Economics of Being a Moron
Let's do the math:
23 domains × £11.99/year = £275.77
That's not nothing. That's... actually, let me think about what else costs £275 a year:
- Netflix: £144
- Spotify: £120
- Disney+: £80
- That gym membership I swear I'll use: £240
So I'm spending more on digital daydreams than I am on the gym I don't go to.
Fantastic. Great life choices all around.
But here's the thing: I'm not buying domains.
I'm buying alternate timelines.
For £11.99, I get to spend at least two weeks believing I'm the kind of person who has a successful side project. The kind of person who "built something people actually use." The kind of person who gets mentioned in Indie Hackers threads.
It's cheaper than therapy and requires less self-reflection.
Each domain is a tiny bet on a different version of myself:
- streamlinehq.io = Me But Successful Founder Edition
- ritualcoffee.club = Me But I Actually Finish Things Edition
- teamexcellence.tools = Me But With Passive Income Edition
- fixthefundamentals.dev = Me But People Take Me Seriously Edition
None of these are who I actually am.
But they're all people I could be if I just had a bit more time, a bit more focus, a bit less... gestures vaguely at entire life.
The domain is the cheapest part of the lie I tell myself.
The Permission Problem (Or: Why Am I Like This?)
I've finally figured out what's actually happening here.
I don't need a domain to start writing. I have a blog. It exists. I could just... write.
I don't need a domain to build something. I could spin up a prototype, chuck it on GitHub Pages, see if anyone gives a shit.
But that's not what the domain purchase is for.
The domain purchase is permission.
Permission to think about something that isn't my actual life.
Permission to imagine I have time for this.
Permission to be excited about something that isn't on my to-do list of doom.
At 2 AM, buying a domain feels like opening a portal to a better timeline. One where I have spare time. Where I ship things. Where I'm not just keeping someone else's infrastructure from catching fire but actually building my own thing.
The domain is proof that the portal exists.
The fact that I never actually step through it?
That's a different problem entirely.
Actually, it's the same problem. I just don't want to think about it.
The Execution Gap (Or: A Timeline of Failure)
Let me show you what actually happens after the domain purchase:
Hour 0 (2:17 AM): Domain purchased. Dopamine spike. Brain is flooded with possibilities. I open a new note: "[PROJECT NAME] - Master Plan"
Hour 1 (2:23 AM): Sketching out the MVP. Just the essentials. Nothing fancy. This could be built in a weekend. Maybe two weekends. A month, tops.
Hour 2 (2:47 AM): Tech stack research. Should I use Next.js? Everyone's using Next.js. But maybe SvelteKit? Actually, what about Astro? Do I even need a framework? Maybe vanilla JavaScript? Maybe I should learn Rust?
Hour 3 (3:18 AM): I've opened 14 tabs about authentication. Auth0 vs Supabase vs Firebase vs rolling my own. There are HackerNews threads from 2019. People are angry about authentication choices. Why are they so angry? Should I be angry? I'm reading all of them to find out.
Hour 4 (3:52 AM): I'm tired. That's fine. I'll start fresh tomorrow. Well, today. Well, later today after work and life and everything. Final note added: "THIS IS THE ONE. START SATURDAY."
I will not start Saturday.
Day 1 (7:30 AM): What domain? I've completely forgotten because there's a crisis at work and none of my previous decisions matter anymore.
Day 3 (Evening): Remember the domain exists. Open the Master Plan. Still looks good. Add one more bullet point. Get interrupted by a child who needs help with homework/wants to show me something/is bleeding (priorities vary).
Week 2: Thought about it three times. Haven't opened the file.
Month 1: Renewal reminder email. "I should really do something with this." does not do something with this
Month 12: Another renewal email. £11.99. Click "Auto-renew" because what if I need it later? What if this is the year? What if—
This is the pattern for 19 of the 23 domains.
It's pathological at this point.
The Ones That Worked (And Why That Makes Everything Worse)
Here's the thing that really messes with my head:
This stupid system has actually worked before.
ritualnorth.com started this way. 2:30 AM domain purchase in 2019. Didn't touch it for four months. Felt guilty every time I saw it in my bookmarks. Then one night I just... wrote something. Then another thing. Then it became the blog I actually maintain.
That tool I built for work (not naming it because work things) started as a 2 AM idea. Sat dead for 11 months. Then I actually built it. Used it for two years. Never launched publicly. Never made money. But it solved a real problem and I felt like a competent human for approximately six weeks.
So the system can work.
Which means every new domain purchase comes with this tiny voice that goes "but what if THIS is the one that works?"
And that voice is a lying bastard but it's not always wrong.
Which is the worst possible outcome because it means I can't just dismiss this as a bad habit. There's just enough success in the graveyard to justify the next burial.
It's like playing the lottery but the tickets cost £11.99 and the prize is "feeling productive for a weekend before abandoning it."
The difference between the ones that worked and the ones that died?
I think it's this: The ones that worked weren't trying to be anything. They weren't "businesses." They weren't "platforms." They weren't going to "solve a real problem in the market."
They were just... things. Small, stupid things that existed because I felt like making them exist.
The ones that died were wearing a three-piece suit before they'd learned to walk.
The Domain I Bought Last Week (Yes, Really)
Last Tuesday, 1:53 AM, I bought thinkstack.io.
I know. I know.
The idea: A directory of self-hosted applications with actual deployment guides. Not just "here's the GitHub link, good luck." But "here's exactly how to deploy this, what it actually costs, what will definitely break, and whether it's worth the pain."
Revenue model: Ads, maybe affiliate links for hosting, maybe a premium tier with Docker compose files that don't make you want to fake your own death.
It's a good idea. I'd use it. Other people would probably use it.
Will I build it?
Statistically speaking: absolutely not.
But here's what's different this time (he said, fully aware of how that sounds):
I'm writing about it. Right now. In this essay you're currently reading. Which means either:
A) I'll be publicly humiliated in six months when someone reads this and checks if thinkstack.io exists (it will be a landing page that says "Coming Soon" with a signup form that goes nowhere)
B) The act of writing about the pattern will somehow shame me into breaking the pattern
C) Nothing will change and this will just be Exhibit 24 in the Museum of Broken Dreams
Place your bets now.
I genuinely don't know which one it'll be.
But if I'm honest? Probably C. It's always C.
Why I Keep Doing This (Or: What's Wrong With Me?)
So why not just... stop?
Cancel the auto-renewals. Let the domains expire. Accept that I'm a person with a job and a blog and that's already enough. Most people don't even have one successful project. I should be grateful. I should be content.
I should shut the fu*k up and stop buying domains at 2 AM.
But I can't.
Not because I'm driven. Not because I'm ambitious.
Because I'm terrified.
Terrified that if I stop buying these domains, I'll have to accept that this is it. This is the life. The job, the responsibilities, the endless cycle of meetings and emails and "can you just quickly..."
The domain purchases are proof that I haven't completely calcified into my job title.
That somewhere under the strategic plans and the stakeholder management and the pretending to care about things I don't care about, there's still a version of me that makes things.
Even if I never actually make them.
Even if the "making" is just buying domains and writing notes titled "Master Plan" that never become plans, let alone master ones.
It's the digital equivalent of keeping your hiking boots by the door.
You're not going hiking.
You know you're not going hiking.
The boots are covered in dust and probably have spiders in them.
But they're there. Which means you could go hiking. Theoretically. If you wanted to. If you had time. If you weren't so fucking tired all the time.
The boots are a lie you tell yourself to avoid confronting the fact that you're never going hiking again.
The domains are the same thing but more expensive and they don't even look good by the door.
The Uncomfortable Truth I Don't Want to Admit
Here's what I've realized after years of this:
Most of these projects will never get built.
All of them, probably.
And I keep waiting for this to hurt more than it does.
I keep thinking I should feel worse about the gap between who I pretend to be at 2 AM and who I actually am at 2 PM.
But mostly I just feel... tired.
Not burned out tired. Not depressed tired. Just realistic tired.
The kind of tired that comes from finally accepting that you're not going to be the person you thought you'd be when you were 23 and had energy and time and ignorance about how the world actually works.
I have a job. It's fine. Sometimes it's even good.
I have a family. They're great. They need me to be present, not just physically but actually mentally there, which is significantly harder than it sounds.
I have a blog. It exists. People read it sometimes. That's already more than most people do.
I have a masters degree I'm supposedly working on, which I chose to do, so I should probably actually do it instead of complaining about not having time.
Something's got to give.
And what gives, every single time, is taskflow-pro.com.
The domains are where my ambition goes to die quietly.
And that's fine.
Maybe that's just what ambition looks like when you're 40-something instead of 20-something.
Maybe this is just what happens when you realize that "having it all" was a lie sold to you by people who had neither jobs nor children nor any concept of what 2 PM on a Tuesday actually feels like.
But Maybe... (The Part Where I Lie to Myself Again)
Here's the thing though.
Every once in a while, one of these stupid 2 AM domain purchases turns into something real.
Not often. Not even occasionally. But sometimes.
And "sometimes" is enough to keep the whole pathetic cycle going.
Ritual North was one. That work tool was another.
Two successes out of 23 attempts.
That's an 8.7% success rate.
In baseball, that would get me cut from the team.
In venture capital, that would make me a fucking genius.
So I can't quite bring myself to stop.
Because what if thinkstack.io is the next one? What if this dumb idea I had on a Tuesday night while running on fumes and poor decisions actually has legs?
What if the act of buying the domain is the first step in a process that eventually, slowly, in the gaps between everything else, becomes something?
I won't know for a year.
And by then I'll have bought four more domains and we'll be having this exact same conversation again.
The Real Problem (The One I've Been Avoiding)
You want to know the actual uncomfortable truth?
The one I've been dancing around this entire essay?
It's not that I don't have time.
I do have time. I'm writing this at 11:47 PM, which is basically just 2 AM with more anxiety about being tired tomorrow. I found time for this. I find time for the blog. I find time for the things that actually matter to me.
The real problem is that starting is terrifying.
As long as taskflow-pro.com is just a domain, it can be anything.
It can be perfect.
It can be successful.
It can be the thing that finally makes me feel like I'm not just treading water until I die.
It exists in this beautiful quantum state where it's simultaneously the best idea I've ever had and also something I'll never have to risk failing at.
The moment I write the first line of code, it becomes real.
And real things can fail.
Real things can be mediocre.
Real things require me to make decisions about tech stacks and user authentication and whether I'm using TypeScript or just raw-dogging JavaScript like some kind of maniac.
Real things can be judged.
Real things can be not good enough.
The domain is Schrödinger's startup. It's both successful and dead. Both brilliant and stupid. Both worth doing and a complete waste of time.
Actually building it collapses the wave function.
And once it collapses, I have to live with the answer.
So maybe what I'm really buying at 2 AM isn't possibility.
It's not permission.
It's delay.
Delay of the moment when I have to find out if I can actually do the thing I keep telling myself I can do.
Delay of the moment when I have to confront whether I'm actually capable or just another person with ideas and no follow-through.
Delay of the moment when I discover that maybe I'm not as good at this as I think I am when I'm lying in bed at 2 AM convincing myself I'm a founder.
£11.99 is a pretty cheap price for avoiding that particular existential crisis.
What Happens Next (Spoiler: Nothing)
I'm going to finish this essay.
I'm going to publish it.
Someone will read it and go "oh shit that's me" and it'll feel good for approximately four minutes.
Then I'll get an email from GoDaddy about another domain renewal and I'll feel personally attacked.
And then, probably next Tuesday around 2 AM when I should be sleeping, I'll have another idea.
It'll feel different this time.
It'll feel special.
The domain will be available. It always is.
The price will be £11.99. It always is.
And I'll buy it.
Because I'm a builder who builds the idea of building things.
And honestly?
That might be all I'm actually good at.
Which is a depressing thought, but at least it's my depressing thought, and I own 23 domains to prove it.
Epilogue: A Plea to My Future Self
Dear Future Me,
When you inevitably read this essay in six months while feeling guilty about thinkstack.io still being a blank page, remember this:
You are not a failure for not building it.
You are not lazy.
You are not lacking in ambition or drive or whatever other bullshit you're telling yourself at 2 AM when you buy the next domain.
You are just a person with finite time and energy and too many ideas for the amount of hours you have available.
And that's fine.
Most people don't have ideas at all.
Most people don't even have the delusion that they could build something.
You have 23 delusions, which is 23 more than most.
So maybe cut yourself some slack.
Or don't.
And buy another domain.
I know you're going to anyway.
Love,
Past You (Who Is Also Current You) (Who Will Also Be Future You) (We're All The Same Idiot)
P.S. - If you're reading this and thinkstack.io is just a blank page, you owe me nothing but we both know what happened.
P.P.S. - If you're reading this and thinkstack.io is actually a functioning website with users and revenue, I am genuinely shocked and also slightly concerned about what else might be possible.
P.P.P.S. - It's definitely a blank page.
P.P.P.P.S. - Or it will be once the domain expires because I forgot to renew it.
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