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discuss Domain Microfinance Program

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What do you think of the idea of a grant and microfinance program?

  • This poll is still running and the standings may change.
  • Brilliant idea - Go for it!

    53 
    votes
    42.7%
  • Good idea but you are in for a tough run

    19 
    votes
    15.3%
  • Long shot but it just might work

    22 
    votes
    17.7%
  • You are going to lose your butt on this one

    30 
    votes
    24.2%
  • This poll is still running and the standings may change.

Rob Monster

Founder of EpikTop Member
Epik Founder
Impact
18,389
As some folks here know, I am a big fan of Digital Empowerment projects that scale.

Over the last year, I have seen lives transformed by people becoming successful domain investors on a bootstrap.

I have been discussing with a few folks about introducing a Domain Microfinance program for emerging economies and for young entrepreneurs.

This could be a Digital Empowerment strategy for helping people to bootstrap domain portfolios. The idea was inspired by a discussion with a young Angolan.

The idea is this:

- People apply to get a microfinance grant. To get the grant, they have to verify their identity. This is done in order to prevent repeat applicants.

- Domains registered are limited to .com. With a budget of as little as $30, right now that is about 5 .com domains at a promo rate of just $5.49.

- The domains are powered by an SSL powered landing pages which domain owners can optimize and then use to sell or lease.

- Once the grant participants generate a certain level of sales or leases, e.g. $100, they can request an interest-free domain loan based on their portfolio.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
For Examples: CityxMarket.com, CityxGrocer.com, CityxTailor.com, cityxSolar.com (of course local language would be used where English does not make sense).
The problem with emerging market city-level geos, is exactly the fact they are emerging market .. and because of that there are very few domains taken and relatively little online saturation. Because of that there is little speculation .. add all that together and the problem you're facing is simply too many potential alternatives at handreg. So while selling a domain for $75 might not seem like a lot .. in fact it is a lot to many businessmen .. and more importantly it becomes an unjustified expense when there are plenty of handreg alternative.

Also .. the moment you get away from English domains the market saturation drops significantly less to the point where mark-up is really almost impossible.


We hired @franka46 in Australia to help with candidate screening. He is off to a fast start.
We hired @Abdullah Abdullah in Yemen to lead the rollout in Middle East and North Africa.
We hired @domainexpert77 in Nigeria to lead the rollout in Central Africa, starting with Nigeria where we have about 1000 clients now.
As for hiring pace, I expect we'll add 1-2 persons per week, notably in emerging markets, for the foreseeable future.
Now I'm really confused .. all these people are being hired specifically to proactively go out to effectively "recruit" people into this micro-finance program?
I really don't want to knock this .. but wouldn't it be wiser to wait until your "education/training" program is developed and ready? Seems like you've got the cart way ahead of the horse here.


I really still am very concerned about the success rate of this program the way it is described.

Rob .. have you maybe thought of a vastly simpler and more realistic and proven option with vastly higher potential success ratios?

Why not just HIRE locals in some of these places you'd like to target. Give people basic training to go out and find CLIENTS for Epik. Basically have them sell packages that include a domain (with branding advice), hosting, email, web design, app development, etc. Obviously sales is not always an easy thing and not for everyone .. but compared to trying to get not-yet-domainers to become successful domainers with absolutely absurd math stacked against them, succeeding at selling Epik "packages" would be a piece of cake.

At some point down the road then it would make a lot more sense to offer "domainer" loans to those sales people who want to try the next step .. but in the meantime at least they have a significantly more attainable and tangible option available to them to help them reach a better standard of living.

Added bonus in that actually having local salepeople will in fact directly grow those digital markets .. where the end users targeted in a micro-finance program would almost need to be first world markets if the math were to have any hope of working.

Not only that, but the markup on hosting/email is pretty significant if you already have the infrastructure as Epik does already. You could effectively offer a 100% commission on a client's first year of revenue knowing that the businesses that do stay beyond a year will more than make up for first year expenses of all new clients. Or better yet .. offer a lower up front commission to your sales force, but have a lifetime (trailing) commission. I won't get too finicky with the numbers as those are details you could better figure out looking at your actual profit margins. (plus I see a few people here getting all exited with minute details, when it's really at the macro level where unfortunately I see a very little potential rate of success the way this all appears to me now).

Beyond that .. I think if it were to help ACTUAL REAL-PERSON and PHYSICALLY VERIFIED locals in developing nations, then I'm pretty sure many of us here would gladly help out every now and then if one of the salespeople needed advice or suggestions on what domain would be good for a local business in a developing nation.

Because at this point while I'm sure the first few cherry-picked obvious candidates already on NamePros would be legit candidates .. there's just too much opportunity for fraud unless there is some physical verification (and even then there's no guarantee).

It's a completely different set of math when you have a client who wants digital services, to find them a domain .. as opposed to having (a likely crappy) domain and then trying to find a business to pay for it at a huge enough premium to pay the expenses of all the domains you didn't sell.
 
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The problem with emerging market city-level geos, is exactly the fact they are emerging market .. and because of that there are very few domains taken and relatively little online saturation. Because of that there is little speculation .. add all that together and the problem you're facing is simply too many potential alternatives at handreg. So while selling a domain for $75 might not seem like a lot .. in fact it is a lot to many businessmen .. and more importantly it becomes an unjustified expense when there are plenty of handreg alternative.

Okay, so lets scratch the geo...how about 'DlaminiUsedTires.com'? I'll save you some time, that is a popular name in South Africa. I've dealt with the 'nouveau riche' on many occasions and part of the marketing to a local money man or woman would consist greatly of the ego aspect (don't think about this like a western domain broker). There is a great divide between those trying to make $5 a day and those that make much more in those markets and a sharp individual can take advantage of the many situations that would present themselves.

I don't think this project is going to be easy by any means and I think there a lot of nuances here that people aren't grasping...there could be local/regional/national assistance to piggy back on this initiative as well as other types of 'help'. Rob alluded to the other 'facets' and it is not my place to speculate or say what I think they are but I do see several that aren't and wouldn't be apparent for a while if/when things get rolling.

My marketing skill set is significant. In two hours time I have convinced business to give me tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars in FREE merchandise or services to use in marketing their business (including some of the largest automotive and restaurant entities). At one time I was one of a few dozen people in the US that knew how to successfully do this and it gave me a phenomenal life. I'll stop here before referring to myself as a 'marketing genius' out of modesty, but I assure you that if I can see potential in this project (keep in mind there may be more than one way to define 'potential' and/or success), there is.

Whether or not the logistics can be worked out to sustain a long running project/operation remains to be seen...but I think it is likely since it seems Rob has sunk his teeth into this one.
 
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Okay, so lets scratch the geo...how about 'DlaminiUsedTires.com'? I'll save you some time, that is a popular name in South Africa. I've dealt with the 'nouveau riche' on many occasions and part of the marketing to a local money man or woman would consist greatly of the ego aspect (don't think about this like a western domain broker). There is a great divide between those trying to make $5 a day and those that make much more in those markets and a sharp individual can take advantage of the many situations that would present themselves.

I don't think this project is going to be easy by any means and I think there a lot of nuances here that people aren't grasping...there could be local/regional/national assistance to piggy back on this initiative as well as other types of 'help'. Rob alluded to the other 'facets' and it is not my place to speculate or say what I think they are but I do see several that aren't and wouldn't be apparent for a while if/when things get rolling.

My marketing skill set is significant. In two hours time I have convinced business to give me tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars in FREE merchandise or services to use in marketing their business (including some of the largest automotive and restaurant entities). At one time I was one of a few dozen people in the US that knew how to successfully do this and it gave me a phenomenal life. I'll stop here before referring to myself as a 'marketing genius' out of modesty, but I assure you that if I can see potential in this project (keep in mind there may be more than one way to define 'potential' and/or success), there is.

Whether or not the logistics can be worked out to sustain a long running project/operation remains to be seen...but I think it is likely since it seems Rob has sunk his teeth into this one.
I think this project has multi faceted goals in mind, trying to kill 3 birds with 1 stone so to speak, one interesting point Rob made was a deductible for donated domains based on some kind of automated appraisal method. This is an interesting concept that goodwill.org does with their goods etc...

Nothing about this industry is easy, and I know many people on the outside spin it other ways, or sometimes you can think it especially these days seeing some of the offkey top sales, but people from emerging countries are usually ready to work 10 times as hard for a 1/10th of the pay. So most will fail, but there will be some who grasp it, and grow it. They may start in domaining, but they will probably end up somewhere else in the ecommerce cycle.

The thing is Rob has a good portion of tools in house at Epik to give his project a fighting chance, and the connections on the outside to put the missing pieces in place. It is no small feat for sure, but he is not really harming anyone except his own resources, so let's see what he can do.

I wake up everyday to an inbox of inquiries from Venezuela, Nigeria, Indonesia, India, Colombia, Mexico... right after seeing the IP locations to be honest I already know it is a dead sale, but I can see their comments, $10,$20 budgets.... I need this domain, you are not using it can you give it to me etc...these are non English first language countries, but these people are filling out the forms and making the submissions. Of course it has become an impossible task to respond, so inquiries just get junked because I don’t have the time to deal with what I perceive as a dead sale, but hopefully ICANN will use some of those millions to help grow the internet into these emerging economies and as the internet grows, so will the value of everyone’s domain portfolio.
 
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IMO this is a brilliant vision for the world masses and the corporate side. Nothing better than a domain name to empower countless hopes worldwide expansion. In 1998 I studied grad school #NGO like Muhammad Yunus Grameen bank. Highly successful with women in particular for these small loans. It was known as "microenterprise" (microcredit).

This is inspiring thought for me as I have been collecting domain names since January 1999. Domaining aside, if even a name like GodAddy can make it, just having one can make all the difference mainstreaming. This shines as Epik is stand-out approach!


- have a special day
As some folks here know, I am a big fan of Digital Empowerment projects that scale.

Over the last year, I have seen lives transformed by people becoming successful domain investors on a bootstrap.

I have been discussing with a few folks at Epik about introducing a Domain Microfinance program for emerging economies and for young entrepreneurs.

This could be a Digital Empowerment strategy for helping people to bootstrap domain portfolios. The idea was inspired by a discussion with a young Angolan.

The idea is this:

- People apply to get a microfinance grant. To get the grant, they have to verify their identity. This is done in order to prevent repeat applicants.

- Domains registered are limited to .com. With a budget of as little as $30, right now that is about 5 .com domains at Epik's rate of just $5.49.

- The domains are powered by Epik's SSL powered landing pages which domain owners can optimize and then use to sell or lease.

- Once the grant participants generate a certain level of sales or leases, e.g. $100, they can request an interest-free domain loan based on their portfolio.
 
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Okay, so lets scratch the geo...how about 'DlaminiUsedTires.com'? ...

That's effectively cybersquatting and trademark infringement when you target someone's business and then outbound to them (even without outbounding and holding something so specific is really past the line).

There isn't a single UDRP panellist that wouldn't find someone guilty for holding such a specific and targeted domain .. and they would be 100% correct in their finding.

Obviously nobody is going to bother paying the $2000 for a UDRP when they can buy it for $75 ... but that doesn't mean that it's not wrong (and has potential to significantly tarnish the industry as a whole if this is done at scale) .. or even illegal ... but even more importantly .. even with such targetted names many people will simply not buy the domains at a markup when they could buy several similar alternatives for handreg.


I think this project has multi faceted goals in mind, trying to kill 3 birds with 1 stone so to speak, one interesting point Rob made was a deductible for donated domains based on some kind of automated appraisal method. This is an interesting concept that goodwill.org does with their goods etc...
Unfortunately I wouldn't really count on this idea ...

First problem is getting all the possible countries covered. I'm in Canada .. it would involve a completely different set of paperwork than someone in England or the USA.

The second problem is value. No government tax agency is going to give you more than what you paid on an asset with such an intangible value as most domains. Plus given the lifetime of a renewal cycle, the more logical amount you'll likely be allowed to claim is $8.49 MINUS the prorated amount of time since the domain was last renewed. So if you donate the domain with 36 days before expiration (1/10th of a year), the tax credit will likely be $0.85 .. which in turn would net you about $0.25 depending on your tax rate. Certainly not worth the paperwork even if you were to donate 10-20 domains! (In Canada I'm pretty sure charities don't give receipts until $20 .. which would mean donating about 23 domains for an approx $20 tax receipt if you donated them with a little over a month to go before expiration)

That being said .. if Rob were to miraculously somehow find a way to give tax deductions based on "appraised" retail values of the domains .. then basically no domainer would ever pay any taxes! So I most certainly hope he finds a way ... but I'm just not very optimistic at the chances of that!


but he is not really harming anyone except his own resources
Unfortunately this is where I disagree .. and why I'm posting a bit more often in this post.

If this grows in scale, it has potential to hurt the industry as a whole if there is a lot of spam or TM issues. Even if unintentional as you see with most newcomers.

I also feel that giving people false hope can also hurt them .. particularly if they invest time that could have been put towards more effective means of self-improvement. Domaining is very difficult .. the VAST majority of people who try it fail ... and unfortunately there is absolutely nothing about this program that mitigates the significant failure rate in any way ... in fact .. the people who this program is actually intended for unfortunately in general have fewer of the complimentary knowledge based resources and skills beyond the basic technical side of domaining. Basically it's already very bad .. and I feel it's not appropriate to tout this to potential applicants as a credible path to prosperity unless they are also told that even after many hours of work they have a sub 10% chance of making it (and I'm being EXTREMELY generous with 10%).


but hopefully ICANN will use some of those millions to help grow the internet into these emerging economies and as the internet grows,
That's one thing I definitely 100% agree with! Icann should really be ashamed of themselves .. it's a total scam how they are completely ignoring their potential mandate to help make the world a better place via digital empowerment! Some of their decisions, actions and non-actions have to make you wonder how it's possible they aren't being paid off to make the absolutely worst decisions for the Internet and humanity!
 
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I am pleased to announce that Epik has acquired all rights to Troy Rushton's very excellent online training product:

https://learn.domainflippa.com/

Along with the deal, was included:

https://nameinvestors.com/ - investor shops/network etc

https://namebrokers.com/ - broker CRM - (investor names can feed into broker network)

https://learn.domainflippa.com/ - training courses

https://affiliates.namebrokers.com/ - affiliate system

https://facebook.com/nameinvestors/ - 60k likes

https://facebook.com/namebrokers/ - 20k likes

The deal was signed this weekend and we are in the process of the handover.

We are very happy to integrate this excellent curriculum into our Microfinance and Digital Empowerment onboarding platform. All participants will have free access to all courses.

Congrats to @Troy Rushton and team. They did something cool, and we hope to share it with a lot more folks, extending the legacy of his excellent work.
 
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That's effectively cybersquatting and trademark infringement when you target someone's business and then outbound to them (even without outbounding and holding something so specific is really past the line).

There isn't a single UDRP panellist that wouldn't find someone guilty for holding such a specific and targeted domain .. and they would be 100% correct in their finding.

Obviously nobody is going to bother paying the $2000 for a UDRP when they can buy it for $75 ... but that doesn't mean that it's not wrong (and has potential to significantly tarnish the industry as a whole if this is done at scale) .. or even illegal ... but even more importantly .. even with such targetted names many people will simply not buy the domains at a markup when they could buy several similar alternatives for handreg.



Unfortunately I wouldn't really count on this idea ...

First problem is getting all the possible countries covered. I'm in Canada .. it would involve a completely different set of paperwork than someone in England or the USA.

The second problem is value. No government tax agency is going to give you more than what you paid on an asset with such an intangible value as most domains. Plus given the lifetime of a renewal cycle, the more logical amount you'll likely be allowed to claim is $8.49 MINUS the prorated amount of time since the domain was last renewed. So if you donate the domain with 36 days before expiration (1/10th of a year), the tax credit will likely be $0.85 .. which in turn would net you about $0.25 depending on your tax rate. Certainly not worth the paperwork even if you were to donate 10-20 domains! (In Canada I'm pretty sure charities don't give receipts until $20 .. which would mean donating about 23 domains for an approx $20 tax receipt if you donated them with a little over a month to go before expiration)

That being said .. if Rob were to miraculously somehow find a way to give tax deductions based on "appraised" retail values of the domains .. then basically no domainer would ever pay any taxes! So I most certainly hope he finds a way ... but I'm just not very optimistic at the chances of that!



Unfortunately this is where I disagree .. and why I'm posting a bit more often in this post.

If this grows in scale, it has potential to hurt the industry as a whole if there is a lot of spam or TM issues. Even if unintentional as you see with most newcomers.

I also feel that giving people false hope can also hurt them .. particularly if they invest time that could have been put towards more effective means of self-improvement. Domaining is very difficult .. the VAST majority of people who try it fail ... and unfortunately there is absolutely nothing about this program that mitigates the significant failure rate in any way ... in fact .. the people who this program is actually intended for unfortunately in general have fewer of the complimentary knowledge based resources and skills beyond the basic technical side of domaining. Basically it's already very bad .. and I feel it's not appropriate to tout this to potential applicants as a credible path to prosperity unless they are also told that even after many hours of work they have a sub 10% chance of making it (and I'm being EXTREMELY generous with 10%).



That's one thing I definitely 100% agree with! Icann should really be ashamed of themselves .. it's a total scam how they are completely ignoring their potential mandate to help make the world a better place via digital empowerment! Some of their decisions, actions and non-actions have to make you wonder how it's possible they aren't being paid off to make the absolutely worst decisions for the Internet and humanity!
You make a lot of good, and valid points.

We shouldn’t be afraid to fail, my first domain I registered in 1997 started with Nasdaq lol, and believe it or not, the domain is still registered to this day, and not to the proper Mark owner. I believe I renewed it for 2 years before I dropped it, but we all started off with some level of failure before we grasped it.

Fast forward going in 2020 prices are expensive, good inventory is very hard to come by, the drops are gamed by a big few players, the deck is defiantly stacked against new entrants for sure. I’m at the point where I see a cross in the aftermarkets where it is to expensive to buy from an investment point of view. Time to sell, hold, and wait for a economic downturn.

But my point is we all started our portfolios with one crappy domain, but somehow we figured it out along the way. Granted most wont, but back then in the 90’s, it was Rick’s one page front page webpage domainking.com that was all the information you could find online, and that wasn’t a blog, it was just some fixed content he had put up.

Now the tools, resources, strategies at the hands of domainers is simply amazing, and that is why a few largely funded companies are gaming the space as their own. Thing is the little guy if he buys smart, and looks hard enough, can still do pretty decent.

There are threads, names here on namepros people won’t bid on, maybe sell for $10, $20, that go on go be sold for tens of thousands of dollars. Names most thing are junk, or not worth the time, most sales people go punch into Namebio, but most don’t have a clue how much goes unreported, how many sales never see the day of light. It takes years to figure it out, but after a while you can look at a name, and the light bulb goes on, or off, and you just know.

I wouldn’t underestimate Rob, I don’t know where he gets the energy, but he gets it from somewhere, but most people probably don’t know pre Epik, he purchased and started Healthcare.com back over a decade ago. Now I don’t need to tell most but when the whole Obamacare fiasco hit, those owners literally struck gold with their quote engine. I know it’s a different start with such a category killer name, but we all have to start somewhere.

Some people think Huge Domains is a curse registering all those reg fee drops, others see it that they are keeping hand reg names at a premium $2k value, and making all domains worth more as people can’t simply register them, and have to acquire them, two trains of thought. So would adding more domajners to the eco system make aged portfolios worth more, or less?

Where better to get this growth in the space than from emerging markets, I know it’s a huge task, with a high risk of a lot of things going wrong, but this kind of stuff is usually trial, and error, with tweaks along the way.

Before big companies started buying portfolios this space had like absolutely zero liquidity. Let’s face it the majority of domains we sell, usually drop after 5 years as those startups fail, but that is how the internet evolves from MySpace to Facebook Etc...in most cases it starts with a domain, and an idea.
 
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I am pleased to announce that Epik has acquired all rights to Troy Rushton's very excellent online training product:

https://learn.domainflippa.com/

Along with the deal, was included:

https://nameinvestors.com/ - investor shops/network etc

https://namebrokers.com/ - broker CRM - (investor names can feed into broker network)

https://learn.domainflippa.com/ - training courses below

https://affiliates.namebrokers.com/ - affiliate system

https://facebook.com/nameinvestors/ - 60k likes

https://facebook.com/namebrokers/ - 20k likes

The deal was signed this weekend and we are in the process of the handover.

We are very happy to integrate this excellent curriculum into our Microfinance and Digital Empowerment onboarding platform. All participants will have free access to all courses.

Congrats to @Troy Rushton and team. They did something cool, and we hope to share it with a lot more folks, extending the legacy of his excellent work.

Congrats, Rob!! To Epik success!
 
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I am pleased to announce that Epik has acquired all rights to Troy Rushton's very excellent online training product:

https://learn.domainflippa.com/

Along with the deal, was included:

https://nameinvestors.com/ - investor shops/network etc

https://namebrokers.com/ - broker CRM - (investor names can feed into broker network)

https://learn.domainflippa.com/ - training courses

https://affiliates.namebrokers.com/ - affiliate system

https://facebook.com/nameinvestors/ - 60k likes

https://facebook.com/namebrokers/ - 20k likes

The deal was signed this weekend and we are in the process of the handover.

We are very happy to integrate this excellent curriculum into our Microfinance and Digital Empowerment onboarding platform. All participants will have free access to all courses.

Congrats to @Troy Rushton and team. They did something cool, and we hope to share it with a lot more folks, extending the legacy of his excellent work.


Congrats Rob! Another reason to love Epik !


 
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One concern, domainflippa, too close to “flippa”?
I havent been too pleased with Flippa lately... what if they any use your prospective rise, against you, by suing you for UDRP! To make up, for their downfall? (My feeling, flippa’s been declining in quality...)
 
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I am pleased to announce that Epik has acquired all rights to Troy Rushton's very excellent online training product

Congrats,

The participants in the program might actually become much more knowledgeable than the average domainer. A very good step that shows your seriousness toward making this project work. IMO
 
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One concern, domainflippa, too close to “flippa”?
I havent been too pleased with Flippa lately... what if they any use your prospective rise, against you, by suing you for UDRP! To make up,for their downfall? (My feeling, flippa’s been declining quality...)

The content will likely move to an Epik-branded host. The navigation is really elegant and the production quality of the videos is A+.
 
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The content will likely move to an Epik-branded host. The navigation is really elegant and the production quality of the videos is A+.

I love acquisition news, more than news of new Epik features, added (like Payoneer etc...) frequently. Does that make me heartless lol? M&A FTW!!

Very exciting. To more... Much more. Next stop... Buy NameSilo (URLOF) trading for, 32 cents, OTC?
 
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Are you going to also make it available to your over 300 fans here at a discount.

You can get input from members here that have already tried it out. Just do some Namepros searches on the keywords posted above, troy rushton, nameinvestors etc. I've been reading some of it.
 
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... but we all started off with some level of failure before we grasped it.

Actually .. no .. that's not true at all when you think about it .. and exactly my point!

YOU grasped it .. yes .. but the VAST majority of people who have tried did not get it!

Look right here at NamePros ... over a MILLION members .. of them how many do you think are still actively domaining? Then .. when looking at that VERY small percentage .. ask yourself another very important question ... How many are actually profiting in domaining? I said 10% above just to make a point at how people were really not even understanding the math .. but in all honesty it's far FAR worse than 10% .. I'd say the number is closer to 1% .. and to be honest .. possibly even below 1%!

And don't forget that they were all people who invested their OWN money .. usually when trading with effectively free money people will be less inclined to succeed.


We here at NamePros see currently active domainers participate .. but what people are conveniently overlooking is that you have to factor in all the people who are no longer here .. all the people who did not succeed in domaining .. it's a truly astronomical number in the hundreds of thousands (probably not quite a million real members if we're going to be honest on both sides .. lol)


Those numbers just can't be ignored to paint a pretty picture .. not taking those real hard facts and numbers into consideration is unfortunately in my mind, an invitation to guaranteed failure! :(


The issue that needs to be addressed, is how to effectively put dents in the conventional domainer failure rates. Sure some of the things mentioned might change things a little bit here or there ... but let's say I'm wrong about the 1% and it's actually by some miracle 5% .. and then let's say by another miracle that with all the other dreamed up ideas actually double the success rate .. then you still find yourself at a 90% failure rate .. and that's being extremely optimistic and assuming a lot more than is realistic.


Again .. I don't want to discourage people trying to do good .. but ignoring numbers does not make them go away ... I really think there are far more effective and realistic ways to help people (many that I already mentioned).


I also want to stress that I'm in no way saying that it's not possible for a few people to succeed ... but if you look at the program as a whole .. you have to ask yourself is it the right thing to get people to do when the vast majority will not succeed?
 
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You can get input from members here that have already tried it out. Just do some Namepros searches on the keywords posted above, troy rushton, nameinvestors etc. I've been reading some of it.

Domaining is mostly a hobby for me that keeps my mind active and helps expand my vocabulary so that I can write about my favorite subjects such as the Environment, Free Speech, and AI. I have been reading the forum and blogs for many years now and I probably know most of the stuff subconsciously, so I was asking for other domainers who have become fans of Epik (but thanks anyway).
 
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you have to ask yourself is it the right thing to get people to do when the vast majority will not succeed?

This is a very valid point,

But for those who don't have any opportunities open to them, they might consider this program to be a blessing. Also even if they fail to make any money, but at the very least they will get some interaction with others (like with the people in this forum) and might learn some basic skills which will help enhance their communication, public relation, and sales abilities which they then might be able to use in a totally different field. IMO

PS: The thousands of people who might have left domaining throughout the years perhaps left as smarter and more skillful people than when they started even if they failed to make a full time job for themselves in the domain Industry. IMO
 
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Once again, Congrats on the acquisition, Epik! Quick glance...

NameInvestors.com looks beautiful. But missing an "About me" page, which I think would do wonders, considering everything else, looks top-notch.

As I keep saying, Thank you for the transparency and commitment, to protecting your clients,
I worry about angry mob, lurking around the corner..
 
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You can get input from members here that have already tried it out. Just do some Namepros searches on the keywords posted above, troy rushton, nameinvestors etc. I've been reading some of it.

lol .. I'd have to say my first thought was "big red flag" .. then I saw some of the cheesy MLM style testimonials that effectively said nothing but non-educated praise for the so called conference they were attending. I hate that type of hollow self-promotion, usually an indication that the course is more about the owner making money on the fees of the participants than actually getting people to succeed (even bigger red flag). Seems like a quick search here at NP also puts up some more red flags.

But to be honest .. that doesn't necessarily mean the actual course content is bad. Unfortunately it's likely build on a pyramid-ish / scammy system .. but that doesn't mean the garbage can't be ripped out. Probably going to be a good deal of work .. and looking at how young Frank looks and the usage of the long gone DomainNameSales.com brand (been a few years since he switched it to Uniregistry), it will also need significant modifications and updating before actually going live. (Or Rob might want to remove Frank completely from the course considering they are likely soon going to be very direct competition to each other .. lol)

Really hard to judge either way without actually seeing the main course (I was only able to see the first intro), as well as the significant modifications and updates Epik will likely do to it.

It's a bad purchase if Rob just wanted it as is ... but I'm thinking it was more just a strategic purchase where much of it will be ripped apart and reformatted and re-purposed. Depending on what he paid for it, I wouldn't automatically say it was a bad move (as long as he gets those cheesy testimonial videos down ASAP .. lol). It certainly is a bit easier to start a course based on an old one than it is to go from scratch. The real question is whether or not the old course is appropriate to build upon .. impossible to say either way without actually seeing it.


Too bad I'm guessing this means no affiliation with @Michael Cyger ... while Cyger did have Adam Dicker as a participating Sherpa before Dicker's apparent scams were made public .. what I respect about Cyger is that after Dicker was revealed to have scammed a lot of fellow domainers, Cyger went through the very difficult and painful process of removing virtually all references to Dicker (written, audio and video) from Domain Sherpa content. Speaking as someone who used to have a large website, I can say without a doubt that what Cyger did was not easy both from a technical standpoint .. but also in terms of a purely content standpoint, doing the right thing while knowing you'd be taking a massive hit from Google .. there are very VERY few people who would ever do something like that .. shows a significant amount of integrity.

That being said .. knowing Michael he probably wouldn't want to do anything if it couldn't be done right .. which certainly would impact the apparent 1 week start to finish timeline here (the cart is already past the finish line .. and the horse isn't even in the start-gate yet .. lol)! ;)
 
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This is a very valid point, ... But for those who don't have any opportunities open to them, they might consider this program to be a blessing. Also even if they fail to make any money, but at the very least they will get some interaction with others (like with the people in this forum) and might learn some basic skills which will help enhance their communication, public relation, and sales abilities which they then might be able to use in a totally different field. IMO

NO !!! (Sorry for the shock value boldness .. lol)

When I look at the math of this .. I see it like one of those big companies that on-board 1000 unpaid interns for 6 months .. then shine a light on how they hired 5 of them at the end of 6 months.

Completely overlooking the fact that 995 of them did not succeed .. and (VERY IMPORTANTLY) that most of those don't have any future in that related business and as such would have benefited significantly more if they had done something else for those 6 months to advance their personal growth and/or education towards something with an actual realistic chance of success (doesn't have to be 100% ... but again ... success in domaining is about 1%)


I do think that there are better and smarter paths to prosperity than domaining in the way we do it. But that doesn't mean they can't try to sell existing digital products and services (like for Epik for example as I specified above).

Generic sales is not easy .. but the numbers and math makes vastly more sense than "domaining". I think if Rob's latest developing nation hires actually focused on building small sales teams dedicated to selling hosting, mail, web+app development AND a domain (handreg .. maybe charge a little fee for branding advice .. but nothing significant as it has to be realistic package that makes sense to developing economy business owners), then that would have a better chance of succeeding .. and the actual direct (face to face) contact with the salespeople would vastly reduce potential fraud. Most importantly, it would mean actually tangibly growing into these emerging regions ... where as domain investors would (and should) likely focus on domains intended for first-world end-user resell.

I think just like most conventional salespeople, more will likely fail in selling such "digital presence packages" than succeed (depends a lot on the screening/interview process) .. but it won't be anything close to the failure rate in domain speculation .. and more importantly, it wouldn't take nearly as much wasted time to know if it's something you'll be good at or not ... whereas someone entering domaining could take months or years before knowing if they are good or not .. particularly when working on a very limited budget.

Again .. i'm NOT saying it's impossible for some to succeed and even thrive .. I'm just saying that for every one that does .. there will be an unforgivingly large number of people who don't ... and who will waste a lot of time and energy and HOPE in trying to figure that out.
 
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(the cart is already past the finish line .. and the horse isn't even in the start-gate yet .. lol)! ;)
NO !!! (Sorry for the shock value boldness .. lol)

When I look at the math of this .. I see it like one of those big companies that on-board 1000 unpaid interns for 6 months .. then shine a light on how they hired 5 of them at the end of 6 months.

Completely overlooking the fact that 995 of them did not succeed .. and (VERY IMPORTANTLY) that most of those don't have any future in that related business and as such would have benefited significantly more if they had done something else for those 6 months to advance their personal growth and/or education towards something with an actual realistic chance of success (doesn't have to be 100% ... but again ... success in domaining is about 1%)


I do think that there are better and smarter paths to prosperity than domaining in the way we do it. But that doesn't mean they can't try to sell existing digital products and services (like for Epik for example as I specified above).

Generic sales is not easy .. but the numbers and math makes vastly more sense than "domaining". I think if Rob's latest developing nation hires actually focused on building small sales teams dedicated to selling hosting, mail, web+app development AND a domain (handreg .. maybe charge a little fee for branding advice .. but nothing significant as it has to be realistic package that makes sense to developing economy business owners), then that would have a better chance of succeeding .. and the actual direct (face to face) contact with the salespeople would vastly reduce potential fraud. Most importantly, it would mean actually tangibly growing into these emerging regions ... where as domain investors would (and should) likely focus on domains intended for first-world end-user resell.

I think just like most conventional salespeople, more will likely fail in selling such "digital presence packages" than succeed (depends a lot on the screening/interview process) .. but it won't be anything close to the failure rate in domain speculation .. and more importantly, it wouldn't take nearly as much wasted time to know if it's something you'll be good at or not ... whereas someone entering domaining could take months or years before knowing if they are good or not .. particularly when working on a very limited budget.

Again .. i'm NOT saying it's impossible for some to succeed and even thrive .. I'm just saying that for every one that does .. there will be an unforgivingly large number of people who don't ... and who will waste a lot of time and energy and HOPE in trying to figure that out.


it's really your subconscious that needs to be trained so that you can know the right order and value of all the important keywords in all the different extensions, and to be able to get a feel for what makes for a good brandable domain, or have the knowledge to sift through all the numeric and 3 or 4 letter domains to find the gems and that takes many years. But the right training course will at least set some guidelines so you won't have to repeat the same mistakes that others before you have made and it's a quick way to learn some sales skills. I assume that the participants are going to be selling domains from a pool of donated and expiry stream domains that will be heavily refined by @Rob Monster and his staff, so that the participants can concentrate their efforts on selling, as far as expanding this to marketing web presence packages goes that's a good idea and is probably not out of the question either at some point in the future. IMO
 
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it's really your subconscious that needs to be trained so that you can know the right order and value of all the important keywords in all the different extensions, and to be able to get a feel for what makes for a good brandable domain, or have the knowledge to sift through all the numeric and 3 or 4 letter domains to find the gems and that takes many years.

You just really don't want to see the pure facts and math for what they are do you?

Trust me .. I really admire what's trying to be done here. I am a VERY VERY strong believer that the solution to a large portion of the world's problems is in bringing education and economic hope to developing nations. It will reduce war, terrorism, hunger, violence, and the list goes on and on. It's not just an admirible goal .. it's the ULTIMATE goal to saving the planet.

However .. getting "a feel for what makes a good brandable domain ... " is something that only a very tiny percentage of people who attempt it end up being successful at. It's not my opinion that most people fail ... IT'S A FACT THAT MOST PEOPLE FAIL ... and that despite the huge amount of existing resources available everyone.

Sure you can come up with a great course and maybe by some miracle double the success rate ... the unfortunate FACT is that you'll still have a failure rate of over 90% (likely well over 90%). I want to be very very clear that this is not an opinion .. IT IS FACT! Look around you .. be honest .. what percentage of people who attempt domaining become successful? If say any number anything close to or above 10% then you are either a liar (which I doubt), or just are completely disconnected with reality (my bet is that if you truly look around and are honest with yourself, you'll come back with a number of 5% and quite a bit lower if you really think about it). I'm not trying to piss in everyone's cornflakes of what on the surface appears like a really nice idea ... it's just an unfortunate FACT that the MATH in this plan is not realistic in any way.

Anyhow .. I've got to get to work on tomorrow's lists .. don't really see the point in continuing this as I'm just looking like the bad guy and it's impossible to make a point when people refuse to look at actual facts, math and reality. I really wish I wasn't the one who had to say all that ... but the vast majority of people who try, fail domaining ... FACT .. PERIOD. (and I'm sorry .. lol)
 
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You just really don't want to see the pure facts and math for what they are do you?

Trust me .. I really admire what's trying to be done here. I am a VERY VERY strong believer that the solution to a large portion of the world's problems is in bringing education and economic hope to developing nations. It will reduce war, terrorism, hunger, violence, and the list goes on and on. It's not just an admirible goal .. it's the ULTIMATE goal to saving the planet.

However .. getting "a feel for what makes a good brandable domain ... " is something that only a very tiny percentage of people who attempt it end up being successful at. It's not my opinion that most people fail ... IT'S A FACT THAT MOST PEOPLE FAIL ... and that despite the huge amount of existing resources available everyone.

Sure you can come up with a great course and maybe by some miracle double the success rate ... the unfortunate FACT is that you'll still have a failure rate of over 90% (likely well over 90%). I want to be very very clear that this is not an opinion .. IT IS FACT! Look around you .. be honest .. what percentage of people who attempt domaining become successful? If say any number anything close to or above 10% then you are either a liar (which I doubt), or just are completely disconnected with reality (my bet is that if you truly look around and are honest with yourself, you'll come back with a number of 5% and quite a bit lower if you really think about it). I'm not trying to piss in everyone's cornflakes of what on the surface appears like a really nice idea ... it's just an unfortunate FACT that the MATH in this plan is not realistic in any way.

Anyhow .. I've got to get to work on tomorrow's lists .. don't really see the point in continuing this as I'm just looking like the bad guy and it's impossible to make a point when people refuse to look at actual facts, math and reality. I really wish I wasn't the one who had to say all that ... but the vast majority of people who try, fail domaining ... FACT .. PERIOD. (and I'm sorry .. lol)

You make some facts in your own mind and then want to force it on everyone else, so let's be honest and consider some facts that everyone can agree on:

There are probably less than 1500 domainers Worldwide who are actually making a profit in which about 10 percent of those might consider this their full time job. (not counting those who are employed by registry and registrars or development and hosting companies).

Thousands of people have tried their hands at domaining over the years and have failed.

thousands more just want to have something to keep them busy and don't rely on domains as a source of income.

A few of the more experienced domainers at Epik are going to give a chance to some disadvantaged people to try to make some money by selling domains under their close supervision and guidance.

The participants may not necessarily need to be best at picking domains at first, they just have to learn some sales and communication skills so that they can market the list of domains that have been refined by Rob and his staff and will have a chance to expand that to selling web presence packages later on.

If the participants fail they walk away with some valuable communication and sales skills that they can then use in other fields.

Now in all honesty do you want to deprive these people from the only chance (however small) that they have of getting out of poverty either through domaining or by using the skills that they have acquired here in some other fields.

I can't guarantee that this project will work definitely, but I am not going to go out of my way to stop it either, we just have to wait and see.

PS: Some of them might already be reading this posts and cringe at seeing all the LOLs that you (as a well off domainer in the West) are using in this thread.
 
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That's effectively cybersquatting and trademark infringement when you target someone's business and then outbound to them (even without outbounding and holding something so specific is really past the line).

There isn't a single UDRP panellist that wouldn't find someone guilty for holding such a specific and targeted domain .. and they would be 100% correct in their finding.

Obviously nobody is going to bother paying the $2000 for a UDRP when they can buy it for $75 ... but that doesn't mean that it's not wrong (and has potential to significantly tarnish the industry as a whole if this is done at scale) .. or even illegal ... but even more importantly .. even with such targetted names many people will simply not buy the domains at a markup when they could buy several similar alternatives for handreg.

Effectively, most of what is you are saying is opinion. 'Illegal'...seriously?!? Lets just agree to disagree as opinions on both sides are like...well, you know.

I will, however, continue to use your links to send you money via godaddy auctions. :xf.smile:
 
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