budget: above $5000 The Goodwill of Domains!

Rob Monster · Sep 21, 2019

Epik has another search in progress for a targeted project that fits into the Microfinance strategy that is currently taking form. We are engaging outside counsel to se up a Charity/Philanthropic arm of the Epik family. The purpose of that entity is to receive (domain) donations. I call it "The Goodwill of Domains" which will scalably fund Digital empowerment grants all over the world.

Here is how I believe domain donations will work:

- Domain owners submit domains with auth codes
- Ownership verification is verified
- Domains accepted transfer starts and user is notified
- Domain arrives
- Domain donor receives receipt with valuation
- Domain is listed with landing page for buy/lease
- Proceeds are used for funding Digital Empowerment grants

The site will also include a section with User profiles where users can create profiles as Staff, Volunteer, Donors and as Beneficiaries. The technology for doing this community is likely going to be based on Pleroma, Hydra or Mastodon -- technologies for highly resilient decentralized community platform which is also being integrated for upcoming Toki.com project as a decentralized Fediverse "Smart Agent" service.

On the donation site itself, we include real-time transparent disclosure of all activity and/or change of status:

- If donor was not anonymous, display <domain> was donated by <donor>.

- When domain is sold, <domain> donated by <donor> has sold for <amount>.

- Digital Empowerment grant of <amount> was made to <beneficiary>.

- <Beneficiary> reported about their impact from their grant.

- <Community Member> posted feedback.

The domain specification:

- .COM and/or .ORG
- Up to 12 characters, including TLD.
- Conveys charity/philanthropy and empowerment in the digital age
- Can be English, Greek or Latin
- Preference for a domain where .COM and .ORG can both be secured.

Lord-willing, we'll select a the top contenders within 7 days and then run a poll with the finalists before buying the domain name to be used for this project. In the meantime, as proof of concept, we have already started giving out grants this week and are interviewing team members. Send candidates to @franka46.

I think it is an exciting project. It fits very strongly with a personal passion: DIGITAL EMPOWERMENT. This is a topic that I fellow Board director @Braden Pollock is also passionate about. We spoke earlier this morning. Perhaps his experience with Benevolent.net will prove relevant for this initiative.

Last but not least, we are also going to source some educational content that will teach program participants about domain investing and how to set up impactful digital presences at low cost. There is an abundance of good teaching content already out there so we'll leverage this heavily.

If folks want to contribute domain names to this project ahead of the tax-exempt entity being formed, you may do so by sending domains with auth codes to [email protected] -- working name courtesy of @Blitzpotz because of his random act of kindness yesterday.

Monetary donations are also welcome. However, be aware that tax exempt status is still a month or two out. Once we have a final brand name for it, we'll set up a dedicated PayPal account for the program. For those who don't care about tax-exempt status, there is BTC address here:

1EErxU6KUmJBD8xoAiMSJ2qBp8UPfSLgkK

Input and advice is also welcome in this thread or you can wait for the poll thread to come up in a few days where your comments can be liked and thanked and where the thread will remain open. This domain wanted thread will only be open for a short while. Feel free to comment here about the program.

Thanks for looking.

bulkdomainz · Oct 1, 2019

DM sent with 3 more suggestions.

wolfis.com · Oct 1, 2019

Rob Monster said:
Still looking for some good prospects for this project.

A .ORG is also acceptable -- some of the stronger candidates submitted so far has been .ORG, and given the philanthropic mandate, a .ORG would work here.

Aspirational words are welcome. Examples of existing submissions:

Reliable.org
Plentiful.org

Sorry to say this but these 2 choices wouldn't be anything I would choose for a website you had in mind where people donate domains to stairs money to give out micro loans for new domaines ... did I completely misunderstood the theme ? Shouldn't the website reflect the business model ? Funding/ donation/ benefits ?

PriyankaS · Oct 3, 2019

When is the deadline for this?

Rob Monster · Oct 6, 2019

Last call for submissions to this project. Here is what has made the cut so far:

@Leopard is dominating on submissions for this one.

I do believe we'll end up going with .ORG for this project.

@Abdullah Abdullah will be playing an important role here.

Rob Monster · Oct 6, 2019

wolfis.com said:
Sorry to say this but these 2 choices would be anything I would choose for a website you had in mind where people donate domains to stairs money to give out micro loans for new domaines ... did I completely misunderstood the theme ? Shouldn't the website reflect the business model ? Funding/ donation/ benefits ?

Upon further review, "Goodwill of Domains" is likely to confining. Yes, domains can be donated like people can donate used cars to a number of charities, or as many domainers give to the Water School. However, I believe the (non-profit) organization that is being contemplated here will draw upon a large base of capital contribution than abandoned domains, and will also have a larger scope of impact than teaching new people in how to speculate domains. Specifically to teaching domain speculation, this will likely be covered by DomainGraduate.com which was acquired by Epik last month along with DomainFlippa and which is being designed into a free curriculum by Sean Stafford of @DomainGraduate. I will share some more details in the poll thread when I post it -- likely tomorrow. For now, I am looking for any final candidates for "Digital Empowerment" brands, likely in .ORG.

private123 · Oct 6, 2019

Pm sent

bmugford · Oct 6, 2019

Rob Monster said:
Upon further review, "Goodwill of Domains" is likely to confining. Yes, domains can be donated like people can donate used cars to a number of charities, or as many domainers give to the Water School. However, I believe the (non-profit) organization that is being contemplated here will draw upon a large base of capital contribution than abandoned domains, and will also have a larger scope of impact than teaching new people in how to speculate domains. Specifically to teaching domain speculation, this will likely be covered by DomainGraduate.com which was acquired by Epik last month along with DomainFlippa and which is being designed into a free curriculum by Sean Stafford of @DomainGraduate. I will share some more details in the poll thread when I post it -- likely tomorrow. For now, I am looking for any final candidates for "Digital Empowerment" brands, likely in .ORG.

I was just about to ask why you would want to call it "The Goodwill of Domains".

Goodwill is a generic term, but in this use it is playing on the famous brand. Why use another famous brand in your own slogan or marketing? You might even run into some legal issues with the potential brand confusion there.

Brad

Rob Monster · Oct 6, 2019

bmugford said:
I was just about to ask why you would want to call it "The Goodwill of Domains".

Goodwill is a generic term, but in this use it is playing on the famous brand. Why use another famous brand in your own slogan? You might even run into some legal issues with the potential brand confusion there.

Brad

I was tying to convey an idea of Digital Empowerment. We won't use that slogan.

bmugford · Oct 6, 2019

Rob Monster said:
I was tying to convey an idea of Digital Empowerment. We won't use that slogan.

Makes sense.

It is a slogan people could probably understand easily, but you can do better.

Brad

Rob Monster · Oct 6, 2019

bmugford said:
Makes sense.

It is a slogan people could probably understand easily, but you can do better.

Brad

Once the scope of what the Toki project aspires to be, the Digital Empowerment potential will become more obvious -- resilient, secure and decentralized framework for content, community and commerce. The engineers are designing the components now -- a Toki server and a Toki client.

To put this perspective, a middle class income in many places would be around $250/month. However, in Nigeria, our very own @domainexpert77 pays $60/month for data services. Therein exists a problem and an opportunity.

@Abdullah Abdullah cannot connect to our VPN because all VPNs are banned in Yemen and actively firewalled, so he is not able to help on registrar-related support. That turned out to be a blessing in disguise, but is illustrative of the challenges that exist in certain places.

Keep in mind the problem of Digital Empowerment is not just a 3rd world thing. Rural Mississippi where @Taylor Ervin is based has similar challenges. Proper internet required installing a satellite antenna with a data plan that is probably out of reach for some of his neighbors.

What is also notable is that a tremendous number of folks are unbanked. More here. Crypto currencies opened up some new possibilities there but digital wallets are far from mainstream for store of value let alone real-time transactions.

And yes, as people become digitally empowered, many will want websites, email, etc. which includes the need for a suitable domain to buy or lease.

Windoms · Oct 6, 2019

Rob Monster said:
@Abdullah Abdullah cannot connect to our VPN because all VPNs are banned in Yemen and actively firewalled, so he is not able to help on registrar-related support. That turned out to be a blessing in disguise, but is illustrative of the challenges that exist in certain places.

If you ever plan to empower people in Yemen make sure @Abdullah Abdullah doesn't end up blindfolded in a government room with water being thrown at him

Laguna · Oct 6, 2019

Pm sent

Rob Monster · Oct 6, 2019

Windoms said:
If you ever plan to empower people in Yemen make sure @Abdullah Abdullah doesn't end up blindfolded in a government room with water being thrown at him

You are right about being particularly prudent when navigating the specific climate and expectations of determined police states.

bidigitals · Oct 6, 2019

Greetings;
Not quite sure I understand your requirements, or if I'm even correct that you're trying to do something that benefits others... but if it helps, SweetestDomains.com has many selections, and links to other mostly one-word domains we can be flexible on, as long as it's just one domain you'd like. Cheers, and best wishes to your best efforts

Rob Monster · Oct 6, 2019

The poll is LIVE:

https://www.namepros.com/threads/poll-for-the-goodwill-of-domains-digital-empowerment-brand.1157478

Namebox · Oct 6, 2019

Rob Monster said:
The domain industry suffers from scarcity of liquidity due to the scarcity of of deep-pocketed retail buyers who know the domains exist. Our challenge is to fix that. I believe we can and we will.

Rob, could you please explain it a bit more ?

Rob Monster · Oct 6, 2019

Namebox said:
Rob, could you please explain it a bit more ?

Here is a very simple illustration.

Last night, an Epik client picked up the domain name Snore-Stopper.com for $9 at the end of Daily Diamonds:

https://marketplace.epik.com/daily-diamonds

I am happy for the guy who bought it since I see do a clear path to ROI on this one. On the other hand, I am less happy for the domainer who never sold it.

In the meantime, what I see happening with emerging market domain investors is they can take that $9 domain and they will go find a buyer. They don't need the 4 or 5 figure exit. They can take a 5 or 10X on their investment and still call it a win. Mostly I see them selling names for around $299.

In emerging markets, the idea of making even a single $299 sale for a domain that costs $9 and for which you don't have to commute to do the work is a life-changing scenario as in many places in the world, it is enough profit to live on for a month!

On the other hand, when you don't have to sell, and can wait patiently for your buyer, that $9 domain is not a $299 sale but a $2999 sale or more -- if you are willing to be patient and move up the value chain by merchandising the domain effectively, e.g. with the SSL landers, and waiting patiently.

Looking ahead, I am not sure how quickly the market saturates at the low end of the market, but at the moment, it seems far from saturated as 100,000 .com drop per day and not all of it is crap, and only a fraction is being picked up on the drop by pro dropcatchers.

On the other hand, if we do our job well, Nigerian and Indonesian domain speculators will not just be selling development-grade domains to western end-users. They will be selling, leasing, partnering and co-investing with business owners in their own markets!

I realize that to some hardened skeptics, sound of this may sound fanciful, but I really don't think so.

Namebox · Oct 6, 2019

That would be great if there would be a project somehow could help the domainers struggling to continue their business due to lack of sales and renewing expenses like the guy for him you feel sorry, who dropped the domain probably because of this.

oldtimer · Oct 6, 2019

Namebox said:
That would be great if there would be a project somehow could help the domainers struggling to continue their business due to lack of sales and renewing expenses like the guy for him you feel sorry, who dropped the domain probably because of this.

Keep in mind that some people let some domains go because they are constantly in the process of upgrading their portfolio. It's hard to maintain a large portfolio and keep everything, but if you keep refining and triming your portfolio to become a small and manageable size of all quality domains then even though you have fewer domains, but your overall portfolio is much better.

My motto is to keep only so many domains that you can remember each one personally. Although there are a lot of people who play the numbers game and so they keep very large portfolios, but I personally find that to be too stressful to manage (at least for an Oldtimer like me

).

PS: domaining is just a hobby for me.

IMO

Kamalprakashnag · Oct 14, 2019

Gohostty.com

Resister at godaddy. Com

mazkel · Oct 14, 2019

DM sent.

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