news Alter ceasing operations

[Mkt Sales Leads]

Email received today:

Farewell​ Hi there, First and foremost, I would like to thank each and every one of you for using Alter to sell your domain names. We couldn't have come this far without your invaluable support. Over the last couple years we've been on a mission to transform the domain industry. However, despite all our attempts we weren't able to find a sustainable business model. So it is with a heavy heart I write to you today to say farewell. On April 2nd, all third-party domain listings will be removed from our marketplace. Seller accounts will remain active for the foreseeable future so those with a positive balance or pending installments can continue to cash out. Lastly, we realize this decision wouldn't be fair to sellers who spent money to have professional logos designed on our platform. So we have refunded all relevant payments back to your account balance which can be cashed out at any time. We truly wish you all the best in your future endeavors. It’s unfortunate that this wasn’t the outcome we wanted but we’re thankful to everyone that came with us on the journey. Sincerely, Deven Patel Founder & CEO

 

[F.E.]

There's still a hope for Alter. More soon

 

[Future Sensors]

One step at a time, but I could tell that I'm in a business of making all partners happy, so I'm sure there'll be room for new opportunities to designers.

I hear a lot of plans, but are you actually negotiating with the owner about new plans? Maybe it's better not to post this all publicly on the forum.

 

[F.E.]

Maybe you should try e-mailing him, but not sure if he's going to do that. Seems that my transparency did brought other interesting parties as well, so I'm assuming decision has already been made.

I'm going to send offer letter tomorrow and we'll see how things are going to move after that, will keep you posted

 

[aoxborrow]

Alter vs. SquadHelp is a fascinating comparison. Alter has created one of the best looking brandable sites out there, extremely professional design and well built, and the logos are of relatively high quality. In contrast, Squadhelp often looks and feels like it was built by duct taping WordPress plugins together. But the difference in inventory is just as striking. Looking at .IO domains at Alter feels like I'm scraping the bottom of the expiring barrel. No amount of logo design is going to fix this domain:
https://alter.com/names/ooio.io

At Squadhelp I see piles of premium names, and many at very affordable prices:
https://www.squadhelp.com/name/Lug.io

Because most brand markets are exclusive, you are facing an uphill battle to attract premium inventory away from incumbents. Why should someone move domains away from Squadhelp if they know they are much more likely to sell there? Their ad spend must be ridiculous, you cannot escape their ads. Even a 10% difference in commission doesn't matter if the domains aren't selling.

Another factor is that Alter lets you set your price, which inevitably leads to lots of overpriced garbage (see above), where Squadhelp mostly curates their pricing and only lets big portfolios control pricing. Better curation = more sales.

Finally, I think Squadhelp does some innovative things on the backend with crowd curation, their wholesale market, and the coins. The result is that lower quality domains have to pay to play, which not only creates revenue for them, but a better market for buyers.

 

[Future Sensors]

I did not realize that. I had thought like many sites there was a daily check. That may explain why seems so little change. And as @eternaldomains says probably many are just last minute people.

The only meaningful metric for me is the number of delegations across 1,200+ TLDs. This is about 15K today. On Alter, 41K domains are present (visible) today.

Have others been refunded the logo design fees as mentioned in the email? I did not buy that many, but no refund yet. Was wondering if that is true for everyone, and waiting until April 2, or if I should inquire.

I've been refunded the full USD 440 I spent on logos. Deven is a very honorable person. It seems to me a great challenge to find someone of his caliber and with his passion for a possible relaunch. A relaunch about which nothing has yet been communicated by Alter itself.

 

[Charybdis]

I like the name
..a lot..what u guys just for fun think a name alter is worth? just name value

More than $25,000
Source: https://alter.com/appraisals
:D

 

[Armageddon]

If anyone has contact of this Patel guy, could you please reach him out and ask if he is interested in possible sellout of Alter.com?


If so, please let me know.

You are not alone

 

[AEProgram]

1. Sorry to hear it didn't work out and it's nice of you to refund people.

2. @Mkt Sales Leads SH and BB spend a fortune with Google on ads. If you ever visited a SH and BB listing you will see banners everywhere with the name you visited. They also spend money on traditional ads.

 

[hawkeye]

It helps that both have had bug sales on their platform

You think them having 'bug sales' are better than them having 'bug problems'?? Asking for a friend of course.

 

[DotKing]

Forgive me if I'm wrong but there's no statement that service/business is closing.
In a nutshell it says just "On April 2nd, all third-party domain listings will be removed from our marketplace." and "farewell".
They will probably operate as a private service with their own inventory...imo

 

[F.E.]

The website should have been a load balancer, a nosql table, a relational database of some kind, 2 docker containers and an elasticsearch instance for the domain search. $200 USD a month tops.

It's all pretty much static data.

there's a difference between website and business. You can start a marketplace website in no time on two Digitalocean droplets with total vowt of $10/mo, but operating a business is slightly different.

Looking at Alter's current business:
- you need a developer to build and maintain marketplace platform
- you need designers on retainer, as no sane designer would agree to design custom logo for $10
- you need support employees to answer inquiries
- you need to pay taxes, accountant, salaries to all of those plus most important

you need to make money. So if you're willing to do all that by yourself feel free to do so if you think it's that easy

 

[F.E.]

The whole point of buying the company would be for the revenue. If a domain investor is trying to buy Alter for their own portfolio, it wouldn't make any sense, since they may as well just run their own site because it would be a lot cheaper.

Anyway, if your purchase is successful, I wish you the best of luck with the new vision.

I can't remember when was the last time anyone acquired company with main goal being to increase profit. All company valuations today are based on growth.

As for the sense, let me give you few reason why Alter.com:
- off-site SEO: backlinks from forbes, yahoo, washington post and others
- established site: already has tons of monthly views
- premium name: Alter.com
- growth potential: reputation in market, trustable name.

And thanks for kind words, I really appreciate it

 

[F.E.]

Exactly, and everything you just said I told you in one point: past Alter operated in between brandable marketplace and general marketplace (like dan, sedo and others). There was no visible line on what Alter was in reality, as entry bar was so low which also led to compensating quantity over quality.

As previously mentioned, if I buy it, Alter is going to shift directions in one of two niches (either general marketplace or brandable marketplace) and depending on that shift, there will be major changes in its operations.

In case I decide to go brandable marketplace route, this would essentially mean reviewing every single domain name and probably parting ways with many sellers, as entry line will be much harder to reach, but on a contrast, once you're in, you'll be having much more visibility as I'm willing to invest deep into advertising and creating much more exclusive marketplace: where one that comes to buy domain name actually ends up buying it.

I'm not into this mainly to make money, but to set a new heights for domain investors, which would probably make a lot noise among competitors.


And as for competitors: From one hand, you have one competitor which is acquiring everything he can in order to be major player, with mislead advertising as well (recently made a tweet about it), while from the other there's an actual competitor who deliver on quality and success rate, but compensate that by having awful UX/UI. So if I am capable of hitting success in advertising space (and my track records in advertising industry says I can) while delivering simple onboarding and portfolio management with awesome support, I'm sure those competitors will take that hit long-term.

 

[F.E.]

Are you saying he has accepted your offer in principle and you are purchasing Alter.com?

Officially not yet, as some previously interested parties returned to the table, but I believe I would be the one who's going to close this deal most def, as money is just waiting for it to happen.

I have not received any official communication about these plans from Alter. What is your source?

I am that source, I'm currently in a process of initiating Alter's acquisition and hopefully acquiring it pretty soon.

 

[Charybdis]

Even a 10% difference in commission doesn't matter if the domains aren't selling.

Yes I would rather sell a domain for 30% commission than not sell a domain for 5-10% commission.

 

[F.E.]

Yes I would rather sell a domain for 30% commission than not sell a domain for 5-10% commission.

that's the whole point of any marketplace: to generate sales. I'm 100% positive that Deven had best intentions and plan for Alter, but that plan required capital sacrifice and operating in net loss for many years, and investing your own money if you'd like to compete with others. Aside that, low commission also brought a lot of lesser quality names which also polluted overall domain portfolio, and blurred lines (I talked about this previously) between brandable domain marketplace and general domain marketplace, so Alter ended up competing with Brandbucket, Squadhelp and others while in reality all that time, those were not its competitors.

 

[Mister Funsky]

what kind of notice companies give when closing? I mean what is so nice about this compared to what you see when companies notifying clients about closing?

Maybe you can post notices from other companies (sent to you via email, prior to their termination) that have ceased operations so we may compare.

 

[eternaldomains]

I have been monitoring the total number of domains, and it is surprising how few have yet migrated to somewhere else. Probably indicates hope that Alter will continue.

Bob

I'm one of those who didn't remove, or more like didn't bother to remove until the last minute countdown. Just thinking that I'll do it while panicking on the last minute

 

[silentg]

Now I don't see the closure message in the admin area, so it isn't closing?

https://www.namepros.com/blog/alter-domain-marketplace-to-continue-operations-under-new-ownership.1269973/

Site has been sold for @F.E. and it'll stay open.

 

[Sammy Jakes]

So painful.

 

[DotKing]

As a new model they lose all the content that probably brings the traffic.

if that traffic does not justify operating costs that's a logical move

 

[F.E.]

That's the one way of making alter succeed (opening inclusive domain marketplace such as Dan, Afternic and others), but their marketing execution was bad to start with.

"Business name generator" doesn't mean domain name marketplace at any certain aspect, so I believe marketing is misleading (unintentionally).

Second aspect of success is to start cleaning up marketplace and make it premium brandable, which is also nice place for success considering number of backlinks from reputable domains (forbes, TWP, Yahoo, and others).

 

[OnlineDomainShop]

I am sad alter has to shut down , alter.com can be next big thing for alt coins

 

[Jason Baudendistel]

I dm'd them and asked about doing a fractional COO arrangement , kicking the tires on seeing if I can help them salvage it. Will keep everyone updated.

 

[Future Sensors]

I am that source, I'm currently in a process of initiating Alter's acquisition

I would then like to advise you to choose your wording about the future of Alter much more carefully. The word "hopefully" sounds very different from your other statements about what Alter will look like in the future. I think you can only say something about that after a possible deal has been concluded.