Atom marketplace (formerly Squadhelp Marketplace)

karmaco said:

We don’t need any predictives to know what the bottom line is. SH specialty is bargain basement prices and with that comes low quality names. People holding high quality names would not accept the 1990s pricing model SH uses and take their names elsewhere if they are smart.

All the analytics tell us is bargain domain shoppers do not have a grasp of what quality branding is and that price is the most important thing for them when making a decision. Just because it sells doesn’t mean its a quality name.

For example, who would want a “Qore” name when they should be wanting the correctly spelled Core? SH has a ton of mispelled knockoffs like that.

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Why would anyone name their brand "Lyft" when they should be wanting the correctly spelled "Lift"?
"Netflix" when they should be wanting the correctly spelled "NetFlicks"?
"Flickr" when they should be wanting the correctly spelled "Flicker"?
"Reddit" when they should be wanting the correctly spelled "ReadIt"?
"Fiverr" when they should be wanting the correctly spelled "Fiver"?

Should I continue? Misspelled words make stylish, modern and fun brand names.

NameWell said:

213...

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I thought that when someone shortlists your name, it means they may be considering buying it. But when those shortlists go into the hundreds, it makes me sceptical as to whether they are genuine or not

SuperBrander said:

@NameWell Got me beat. Mine has 191.

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I think I might be running for a record here :D

NameWell said:

Why would anyone name their brand "Lyft" when they should be wanting the correctly spelled "Lift"?
"Netflix" when they should be wanting the correctly spelled "NetFlicks"?
"Flickr" when they should be wanting the correctly spelled "Flicker"?
"Reddit" when they should be wanting the correctly spelled "ReadIt"?
"Fiverr" when they should be wanting the correctly spelled "Fiver"?

Should I continue? Misspelled words make stylish, modern and fun brand names.

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Your suggestions don’t apply to what I meant. Lyft is a 4 letter word and Flickr is a 6 letter word ending in R which are both intrinsically more valuable. I am talking about the numerous two word domains that have mispelled words like “Qore” and “Cana” etc . SH is loaded with this kind of garbage. Its good they slowed acceptance down because they accept nonsense.

Laguna said:

I thought that when someone shortlists your name, it means they may be considering buying it. But when those shortlists go into the hundreds, it makes me sceptical as to whether they are genuine or not

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Pretty sure most people are just clicking it as "likes".

NYJimbo said:

Pretty sure most people are just clicking it as "likes".

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That's the impression I get too but I hope I'm wrong

@karmaco Trends in naming are constantly changing, though. A lot of contest holders on the site view names like "Flickr" as dated. I don't care for "Qore" either but multiple contests have been won with this letter substitution in the past year. Since SH takes contest ratings into consideration, that's most likely why they are being approved. And it absolutely does come down to price; people would rather constantly spell out "Qore" to their customers then pay hundreds or thousands more for the correct spelling.
@Laguna The shortlists are pretty meaningless, imo. My highest is 190 but I have quite a few over 150. It just lets you know the name is being seen.

karmaco said:

Your suggestions don’t apply to what I meant. Lyft is a 4 letter word and Flickr is a 6 letter word ending in R which are both intrinsically more valuable. I am talking about the numerous two word domains that have mispelled words like “Qore” and “Cana” etc . SH is loaded with this kind of garbage. Its good they slowed acceptance down because they accept nonsense.

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You're absolutely right.

I hope I don't sound rude here but even most of SH featured premium names on their home page are bad. I wonder who owns these domains, and what SH have to gain by promoting such rubbish?

Here's the trouble. Let's say someone is seeking a name for their new startup/site and they see an advert from SquadHelp.. They think "cool I'll give this guys a try"and when they visit they see messages like "branding experts" or whatever. This is someone who isn't well versed in branding or domains. They see these names and think "so these type of names are good"? And then they're persuaded by the psychology of it all to buy one of these awful names because they're seemingly getting a great price.

These misguided people are choosing awful names because they're told they are good, and likely killing their startup or business before it's even begun.

Dave said:

Who honestly thinks domains like roqket or PayStud are good names. These are just two examples of the many bizarre ones that have sold, in my opinion. And they're the sort of names that get visibly shown to their audience time and again, not the actual quality ones that are buried away on their marketplace.

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It's odd seeing those kind consistently listed/sold for $4k+, everything I attempt to list at high 1$$$/low 2$$$ (e.g. v/u/p/l/a or d/u/v/i/r) is quickly rejected with no feedback (rejection is fine ofc but wouldn't mind an auto-reason message from a dropdown as I'm paying to try). I guess I'd just like to know exactly what it is they're looking for because it seems to be specific types of brandables

ALDaisy1 said:

@karmaco Trends in naming are constantly changing, though. A lot of contest holders on the site view names like "Flickr" as dated. I don't care for "Qore" either but multiple contests have been won with this letter substitution in the past year. Since SH takes contest ratings into consideration, that's most likely why they are being approved. And it absolutely does come down to price; people would rather constantly spell out "Qore" to their customers then pay hundreds or thousands more for the correct spelling.
@Laguna The shortlists are pretty meaningless, imo. My highest is 190 but I have quite a few over 150. It just lets you know the name is being seen.

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And there in lies the problem. People who want names for $100 to $300 in the contests don’t want quality names— they want a hack or knockoff. This further supports my theory that SH is appealing to the lowest common denominator— Very cheap and very not funded.

Future problems can arise if the correctly spelled core or canna name is developed or becomes developed or just plain old takes their traffic. SH should be raising the bar not lowering it. They should be educating buyers not placating. They are definitely not pro domainer just pro whatever our target audience with very low budgets want (even to their detriment). Nobody will be taken seriously with a bad name.

We respect everyone's feedback and opinion however I would like to share few things as clarification:

• Squadhelp doesn't target or bring a specific "type" of buyer. If anything, we have the broadest reach when it comes to attracting buyers looking for name. For example, in Google alone, we show our ads on 50,000+ keywords across 50+ countries. If you Google any naming related keywords, you will likely find SH appearing most often in the paid results as well as first page of organic search results. Anyone looking for a name is our target customer, and that is how we advertise our platform.

• Our customers range from early stage bootstrapped startups to well funded startups to multi-billion dollar corporations. For reference, some of our recent customers are listed on our homepage. It is reasonable to assume that many bootstrapped startups do not wish to spend more than $2K for a name. On the other hand, many of our customers have significantly higher budgets, which is reflected in several of the featured sales listed in the platform. It is interesting to note that many of the larger corporations actually prefer to start with a naming contest first so they can see a full breadth of name ideas (including relevant names from Marketplace). If a company is offering $200/$300 award in a naming contest, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are doing it due to low budget. In many cases their goal is to get a large breadth of relevant ideas before picking a name. This is why several of our contest holders eventually buy names from our Marketplace after hosting a naming contest.

• We are the only platform that offers advanced name validation tools to our customers before they buy a name from the marketplace. For example, we offer a complimentary Trademark validation (by a Licensed Trademark Attorney), a complimentary Audience Testing service where customers can test their favorite names with their own target audience and get unbiased feedback before purchasing the names.

Some of our customers specifically look for names with creative misspelling to make their brand stand out from others. Having said that, I am sure there are several examples, where we may have made a poor choice in selecting names that are not viable for any end user. Similarly, we have likely incorrectly rejected several names that may have been a great fit for our customers. We continue to learn and improve.

Name quality can be subjective at times, but based on the info SH provides and other marketplaces provide- there's definitely a problem. Sqaudhelp's average sale price is lower than other marketplaces. The amount of sales above 3K is negligible. Above 10K it's almost non-existent and can be counted on one hand or two at best. Some of these can also possibly be attributed to direct navigation rather than a customer who found the domain in the system.

As you know @GrantP- I like Squadhelp and have been using it for contests and the marketplace way before all the hype began. I plan to continue using it for many names. But as someone who has a lot of high priced domains listed- the conversion rate for those is terribly low to the point where I keep delaying withdrawing them because I keep thinking/hoping things might improve with time. At the moment it doesn't look like the great majority of SH's customers want to pay much. At the same time, one of your competitors is getting me multiple names sold for mid-high $XXXX and low-mid $XX,XXX every year. There's an inevitable tipping point where decisions will have to be made regarding most domains that aren't around the $2000 mark if things don't improve. Sellers like me would be foolish to add or keep better than average names if SH can't convert a reasonable amount (As an aside, I'll just mention that in the past you guys used to post often about clients with high budgets looking for names. Sometimes contest holders also mentioned it in their contest briefs. For the past year or so there have been no such requests and contests).

There are a lot of awesome things about SH, the innovations it's making, the marketing spend etc. But I think acknowledging there's an issue could be a good start instead of mentioning featured sales and working with big companies as proof of making high end sales. These featured sales are the overwhelming exception and SH's competitors have higher average sales as well as a way bigger number of sales in the mid $X,XXX and higher range. After acknowledging there's an issue perhaps a road map to a solution can take shape, which should end up in more money in SH's pockets as well as the sellers on the platform.

Thanks for the consideration.

xdomainer said:

I can understand brandables can be quite subjective but when I see this approved:
YourKidding

I just scratch my head.

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Per @GrantP theory, this name was probably in their database of the most liked/suggested etc. in their contests and once someone added it, it got green flagged by the system and the mod fell in love with it. Even though it makes no sense neither as a brand, nor grammatically

Somehow when i read some comments here about why people bought this and that, why not this kind of name, why those names, it reminds me of quote by Alan turing in Immitation Game

Well, we allow for humans to have such divergences from one another. You like strawberries, I hate ice-skating, you cry at sad films, I am allergic to pollen. What is the point of...of... different tastes, different... preferences, if not, to say that our brains work differently, that we think differently?

Most SH customers if not all like to hand registered. The number of names I submitted which were unregistered and not chosen but almost in the same day registered and same business explained in the contest published on the domain is way too much and that is what made me stop participating contests.

And one of the funny things is their investigation style. They ask the contest holder and if he or she says no then case closed. If it is qfter 30 days and even though they can see same business explained in costest brief run on the domain, they tell you, sorry, you are too late. CHs very much know this rule as they can access the help pages and I have seen names registered 15 to 30 days after I suggested them. And yes, most of these people use Namecheap or Namesilo with privacy, which are two of the main registrars SH uses.

It is amazing actually but this is what is SH and nothing can be changed I think. I still remember when I submitted a premium listing name of 6Ls and the CH was so in love with it then suddenly sent me, How about changing the name like this and buying this...this being an available name that he added two letters, saying we cant afford to buy your name. Such things should be monitored and buyers need to be told that this is not acceptable.

JM

@GrantP

@GrantP, thanks for posting to this forum, but this is the wrong forum for you. Please get back to SH's internal forum and really put an effort answer questions and comment in there.

Please also take your name more seriously. You are SuadHelp. Make some real effort helping your customers - contest holders, contestants, and domain sellers. We don't care how much $$$ you spending on marketing, and please stop pretending you are the only crowd source platform offering naming services.

Please review all contests being submitted by contest holders. Often the contest briefs have scant detail of what the business is about. And the requirements are sometimes unreasonable. For each contest, you are paid over $400, and the contestants are paid $1 if you distribute the award evenly to each contestant. The contestants have no duty vetting the briefs and report problems. It's SquadHelp's job to make sure all contest briefs are clear, that all contest holders are responsive, that all contest holders provide feedback and ratings in a timely manner, and that all contest holders are properly educated about what a good name should look like, and more importantly, that contest holders do not keep moving the goal posts.

Some people should not try to come up with names themselves. And some people should not even choose names. Yes, sometimes of your customers do ask for made up names. But sometimes the briefs specifically ask for real word name (no misspelling of any kind) and then the contest holder choose a face-palm, made-up names.

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Regarding other comments here. I have been lurking in SH for some time. It's a great platform to test names. SH don't have a wide range of customers, so you get to throw the same made-up names to the same customer base over and over again and see which ones stick. That way you can decide which ones to hand reg yourself and sell it somewhere else.

Haven't had issue with any of my submission stolen. Still, I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often. A domainer can post a $500 contest, give everyone a high rating and encourage more submissions, and hand register the good ones. It's a small price to pay. Personally I rarely submit the best names I have just so I don't get burned.

@NameWell, a name is just a random label without real marketing behind it. Made-up names are risky for many businesses. For many, creative names such as "Tired and Exhausted" (garage) and "Curl Up & Dye" (hair salon) are much better.

FUN QUESTION: Take a guess to which industry nualty (.) com (past SH winner) was meant for

I stopped participating in SH contest after a CH stole my idea. It submitted the available name, CH gave it a love it rating, only to find out it was registered some hours later that same day with namecheap which is one of SH preferred registrar. I complained to SH but as usual, they said CH said he wasn't the one and case closed. The domain is now fully functional with same business the CH wanted to use the name for.

Tunababa8v said:

I stopped participating in SH contest after a CH stole my idea. It submitted the available name, CH gave it a love it rating, only to find out it was registered some hours later that same day with namecheap which is one of SH preferred registrar. I complained to SH but as usual, they said CH said he wasn't the one and case closed. The domain is now fully functional with same business the CH wanted to use the name for.

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Happened to me many times then I realized it is a common thing and stopped submitting any names hat are unregistered, then later decided to not submit any at all , whether registered or unregistered.

It’s sad to see things go downhill for some with SH, for a while sell thru rates look really good for some. The same thing happend to brandbucket when they got to much inventory such a shame.

JudgeMind said:

Hey Folks,

I've just started using squadhelp.com to list some of my brandable. So far I have 76 domains listed, there is no fee to list. I've had some decent action so far in the way of interested buyers but no sales as of yet. I've only been with them for 1 week now.

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So if you have 76 domains listed, are they then designing 76 Logos for free ?

Abdullah Abdullah said:

Most SH customers if not all like to hand registered. The number of names I submitted which were unregistered and not chosen but almost in the same day registered and same business explained in the contest published on the domain is way too much and that is what made me stop participating contests.

And one of the funny things is their investigation style. They ask the contest holder and if he or she says no then case closed. If it is qfter 30 days and even though they can see same business explained in costest brief run on the domain, they tell you, sorry, you are too late. CHs very much know this rule as they can access the help pages and I have seen names registered 15 to 30 days after I suggested them. And yes, most of these people use Namecheap or Namesilo with privacy, which are two of the main registrars SH uses.

It is amazing actually but this is what is SH and nothing can be changed I think. I still remember when I submitted a premium listing name of 6Ls and the CH was so in love with it then suddenly sent me, How about changing the name like this and buying this...this being an available name that he added two letters, saying we cant afford to buy your name. Such things should be monitored and buyers need to be told that this is not acceptable.

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what or who is "CH" ?

Thanks!

CH = Contest Holder

Larion said:

what or who is "CH" ?

Thanks!

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CH is abbreviation of Contest Holder.

Larion said:

So if you have 76 domains listed, are they then designing 76 Logos for free ?

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I believe @JudgeMind has more than 200 names listed with them as he said he will remove 72+139.