Atom / Atom.com - Marketplace (formerly Squadhelp)

[JudgeMind]

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.

A bit of a summary review of SquadHelp:

PROS

• No Listing fee
• No Logo design fee
• Ability to submit your names to end users holding naming contests
• Ability to chat directly or send a message directly to end users.
• Stats of your marketplace domains are shown in the marketplace dashboard.
• Their customer service and support has been great, 24hr a day chat.
• Ability to increase or decrease the list price of your domains or to show a discount. You can decrease or increase the price yourself by $200. If you want to lower more, you can contact support.
• End users can shortlist your domains before they make a decision on which they want to purchase. The number of shortlists is shown in you marketplace dashboard.
• When you submit your names you get to set the price you wish to get. Because their commissions are high I recommend listing at a higher price to offset the commission costs.
• Their landing pages are fairly basic but they work. Because the marketplace is fairly new, I'm sure we will see style improvements in the future.
• One thing I really like is they accept multiple extensions. I have listed .co and .io along with .com
• Each seller gets a direct link to their marketplace portfolio, HERES MY PORTFOLIO. It is handy if your trying to p[promote your portfolio through social media.
• I like that their marketplace doesn't have tens of thousands domain listings like BB. They are fairly strict on the domains they accept to list and so this helps keep the number of domains in the marketplace down and gets your listings more exposure.

CONS

• Their commissions are very high, depending on the domain name they are usually between 30% and 35%. However, there are no listing fees, no logo design fees, so in the end their commission is very similar to brand buckets.
• Their logos are not top quality, in fact I requested to have some of my logos remade.
• I think they have a big backlog of logos to design, the wait time for logo design has been around 1 week, but your names are still listed while the logos are being designed.
• After your names are accepted you need to agree to their commission rate, at this point you also need to apply your own keywords, descriptions etc. I found this was very time consuming.

 

[Cdomains]

I stopped adding, as it is becoming waste of time. Don't see any logic in what is rejected or what is accepted

I am glad someone else thinks the same as me.

You are right - the way they pick names makes no sense!!

I gave up submitting names a couple weeks ago.

Might give it one more try soon.

 

[Atom.com]

There are many people on this forum who probably have lot more Domaining experience than our team - and we will certainly make wrong decisions from time to time. Having said that, we do work closely with thousands of end users in helping manage their naming contests and these one on one interactions give us a perspective about the types and styles of names our customers are looking for.

One thing that may not be very obvious is that we have a database of over 6 million domain names that have been submitted to contests (many of them to multiple contests). The analytics about these names certainly play a role in our decision making process. For example, if a specific name was previously submitted to 7 contests and was liked by 3 of the contest holders, this demonstrates that the name is resonating well with potential end users. If you are submitting a name that was registered after 2011, there is a good chance that it was previously submitted to one of our contests by someone else, and we therefore have some analytical information about it. Even if we do not have specific data about that name in particular, we may have broader data about similar names which might play some role in our decision making.

The article shared previously covers the key branding principles and framework used by our branding team. Everything else being equal, there is a relatively higher chance of your name being accepted if it meets the best practices outlined in the article. However, more often than not, everything else is not equal. We may have additional insights about the name from past contests, or certain nuances about the style of name that make it more appealing or less appealing based upon our interactions with customers.

This may sound obvious, but we have no reason to reject a name if our team believes that name will resonate well with our customers. Similarly, we have absolutely no reason to accept a name, if we have doubts about it's overall fit. Infact, every wrong decision costs us money because we make upfront investment in designing the logos and promoting names without collecting any listing or appraisal fees from sellers.

As far as Trademarks are concerned, we do not conduct an upfront Trademark research while accepting or rejecting the names. Having said that, we may reject certain names if they have a very obvious conflict with a well known brand. We do have Trademark attorneys in our team who assist buyers and contest holders in performing a comprehensive Trademark research against their specific class or industry (where the name is intended to be used).

If you strongly believe we made an incorrect decision in rejecting some of your names, please use the "request review" process to provide an explanation and our team will certainly take that explanation into account while reviewing the name again.

 

[Recons.Com]

There are many people on this forum who probably have lot more Domaining experience than our team - and we will certainly make wrong decisions from time to time. Having said that, we do work closely with thousands of end users in helping manage their naming contests and these one on one interactions give us a perspective about the types and styles of names our customers are looking for.

One thing that may not be very obvious is that we have a database of over 6 million domain names that have been submitted to contests (many of them to multiple contests). The analytics about these names certainly play a role in our decision making process. For example, if a specific name was previously submitted to 7 contests and was liked by 3 of the contest holders, this demonstrates that the name is resonating well with potential end users. If you are submitting a name that was registered after 2011, there is a good chance that it was previously submitted to one of our contests by someone else, and we therefore have some analytical information about it. Even if we do not have specific data about that name in particular, we may have broader data about similar names which might play some role in our decision making.

The article shared previously covers the key branding principles and framework used by our branding team. Everything else being equal, there is a relatively higher chance of your name being accepted if it meets the best practices outlined in the article. However, more often than not, everything else is not equal. We may have additional insights about the name from past contests, or certain nuances about the style of name that make it more appealing or less appealing based upon our interactions with customers.

This may sound obvious, but we have no reason to reject a name if our team believes that name will resonate well with our customers. Similarly, we have absolutely no reason to accept a name, if we have doubts about it's overall fit. Infact, every wrong decision costs us money because we make upfront investment in designing the logos and promoting names without collecting any listing or appraisal fees from sellers.

As far as Trademarks are concerned, we do not conduct an upfront Trademark research while accepting or rejecting the names. Having said that, we may reject certain names if they have a very obvious conflict with a well known brand. We do have Trademark attorneys in our team who assist buyers and contest holders in performing a comprehensive Trademark research against their specific class or industry (where the name is intended to be used).

If you strongly believe we made an incorrect decision in rejecting some of your names, please use the "request review" process to provide an explanation and our team will certainly take that explanation into account while reviewing the name again.

I love your detailed responses. And I appreciate you taking time to do it as well. That is a welcome difference from BB, for example.

And I get a feeling that you genuinely believe what you are posting too.

I wish those explanations would hold some water too. Unfortunately, they don't.

Basically, you are saying that the review process is semi-automated. I.e., your reviewers have access to the "history" of a name at your platform. How that even works? If an ugly name was submitted 10 times and got couple of likes, then it gets some positive score and if a nice name was submitted 1-2 time and no likes, then it gets negative score?

You might have 6 million submissions, but probably most of them are repeat submissions of already listed names or names still available at handreg. Good names don't stay in drops for long for most part (there are exceptions, but not millions and not even hundreds of thousands). So, no, most rejected names probably had never been submitted at your platform, and certainly not 4Ls.

Furthermore, now you are effectively saying that names like Bunny/And/Bo, Nuvi/qe, Rising/Door, One/Carousel, Sell/Vast, Ensight/ian, Quite/Luxe, Edge/larity, Blush/is had multiple submissions and great reception with multiple likes. And I strongly doubt that or the buyers are truly clueless.

No, seriously, you are saying with a straight face that naming a company "Rising/Door" is a great idea, because it was previously submitted while available and then once someone regged it and submitted, your software recognized it and your great reviewers agreed with it? Instead of giving generic response, why don't you break down this example and let me know how it matches your own criteria? How does Rising/Door look? It lies flat on the floor and goes up when someone tries to cross? That would be a novel idea ))) What type of business could use it? Ok, let's look at description:

"
The name expresses the opening and the vertical direction. He is fresh, friendly, and promises growth.

Possible Uses
a Construction company, a Consulting Company, a Real Estate business and more!"

Really? Construction company named "Rising/Door"? ))) And why the name is "He"? Your reviewers can't figure out that a brand is "it", not "he", and yet they are linguistic and branding experts!

Let's look at "Ensight/ian":

"A visionary name based on the words 'sight' and 'envision'. Possible uses: A graphic design firm. A photo sharing platform. A vision or eye wear product. A wearable technology. A virtual reality company. An animation studio. A toy brand. A marketing agency."

Wow! So merging sight and envision gives Ensight/ian? Maybe, Ensight? Who is Ian then? And, envision has nothing to do with it. It is a prefix en- at play here. See enforce, endorse, enable etc. But you don't create brandables by both adding prefix and suffix to a word. This is why enright/ian is still available for hand reg

Let's find out the logic behind Nuv/iqe.

"
A short, elegant, and sophisticated name that insinuates something new and fresh. Would pair well with premium products pertaining to beauty and/or skincare."

Seriously, though, hire editors with a better command of English, if you guys are going to act as if you have figured out branding and are super selective.

Insinuates???

"Insinuate - suggest or hint (something bad or reprehensible) in an indirect and unpleasant way"

So this short, elegant and sophisticated name suggest in an unpleasant way something new and fresh? On the second thought, it does make sense ) And now brands "pair well" with products?

What kind of suffix/ending is /iqe? If I submit new/iqe, brand/iqe and the whole dictionary+iqe, since all of them seem to be available, you will superselectively give them all pass?

 

[ALDaisy1]

The name descriptions in the Squadhelp marketplace are written by the owners of the names. There are some with good descriptions, and some that are pretty bad, but either way, Squadhelp is not writing them.

 

[Recons.Com]

The name descriptions in the Squadhelp marketplace are written by the owners of the names. There are some with good descriptions, and some that are pretty bad, but either way, Squadhelp is not writing them.

First, it is not true.

Second, if true, that is awful for the website integrity.

 

[NameWell]

I am glad someone else thinks the same as me.

You are right - the way they pick names makes no sense!!

I gave up submitting names a couple weeks ago.

Might give it one more try soon.

My advice would be keep a close track on what sells and on newly added names.

First, it is not true.

Second, if true, that is awful for the website integrity.

It is true. Creatives write descriptions for their domain names. Squadhelp sometimes edit them, though.

 

[ALDaisy1]

First, it is not true.

Second, if true, that is awful for the website integrity.

Lol, it certainly is true. When you have a name approved as a premium listing, you are provided with a form to fill out that includes main category, possible uses, and description. I suppose it is possible Squadhelp might write a description if that section was left blank, but otherwise, the person listing the domain provides the listing info. Anyone who lists on the platform can confirm this is the case.

 

[Recons.Com]

Lol, it certainly is true. When you have a name approved as a premium listing, you are provided with a form to fill out that includes main category, possible uses, and description. I suppose it is possible Squadhelp might write a description if that section was left blank, but otherwise, the person listing the domain provides the listing info. Anyone who lists on the platform can confirm this is the case.

When I say it is not true, I mean SH takes full ownership of description and uses your input as starting point, very often re-writing it. So they are fully responsible for any "insinuations" there.

 

[NameWell]

I love your detailed responses. And I appreciate you taking time to do it as well. That is a welcome difference from BB, for example.

And I get a feeling that you genuinely believe what you are posting too.

I wish those explanations would hold some water too. Unfortunately, they don't.

Basically, you are saying that the review process is semi-automated. I.e., your reviewers have access to the "history" of a name at your platform. How that even works? If an ugly name was submitted 10 times and got couple of likes, then it gets some positive score and if a nice name was submitted 1-2 time and no likes, then it gets negative score?

You might have 6 million submissions, but probably most of them are repeat submissions of already listed names or names still available at handreg. Good names don't stay in drops for long for most part (there are exceptions, but not millions and not even hundreds of thousands). So, no, most rejected names probably had never been submitted at your platform, and certainly not 4Ls.

Furthermore, now you are effectively saying that names like Bunny/And/Bo, Nuvi/qe, Rising/Door, One/Carousel, Sell/Vast, Ensight/ian, Quite/Luxe, Edge/larity, Blush/is had multiple submissions and great reception with multiple likes. And I strongly doubt that or the buyers are truly clueless.

No, seriously, you are saying with a straight face that naming a company "Rising/Door" is a great idea, because it was previously submitted while available and then once someone regged it and submitted, your software recognized it and your great reviewers agreed with it? Instead of giving generic response, why don't you break down this example and let me know how it matches your own criteria? How does Rising/Door look? It lies flat on the floor and goes up when someone tries to cross? That would be a novel idea ))) What type of business could use it? Ok, let's look at description:

"
The name expresses the opening and the vertical direction. He is fresh, friendly, and promises growth.

Possible Uses
a Construction company, a Consulting Company, a Real Estate business and more!"

Really? Construction company named "Rising/Door"? ))) And why the name is "He"? Your reviewers can't figure out that a brand is "it", not "he", and yet they are linguistic and branding experts!

Let's look at "Ensight/ian":

"A visionary name based on the words 'sight' and 'envision'. Possible uses: A graphic design firm. A photo sharing platform. A vision or eye wear product. A wearable technology. A virtual reality company. An animation studio. A toy brand. A marketing agency."

Wow! So merging sight and envision gives Ensight/ian? Maybe, Ensight? Who is Ian then? And, envision has nothing to do with it. It is a prefix en- at play here. See enforce, endorse, enable etc. But you don't create brandables by both adding prefix and suffix to a word. This is why enright/ian is still available for hand reg

Let's find out the logic behind Nuv/iqe.

"
A short, elegant, and sophisticated name that insinuates something new and fresh. Would pair well with premium products pertaining to beauty and/or skincare."

Seriously, though, hire editors with a better command of English, if you guys are going to act as if you have figured out branding and are super selective.

Insinuates???

"Insinuate - suggest or hint (something bad or reprehensible) in an indirect and unpleasant way"

So this short, elegant and sophisticated name suggest in an unpleasant way something new and fresh? On the second thought, it does make sense ) And now brands "pair well" with products?

What kind of suffix/ending is /iqe? If I submit new/iqe, brand/iqe and the whole dictionary+iqe, since all of them seem to be available, you will superselectively give them all pass?

You should really try tracking recently bought names for a couple of months and you'll see that names similar to the ones you listed above are actually selling. Furthermore, if you'll track names that recently won contests on Squadhelp you'll see some names that are similar to those in a way. They might not make sense to you (it's subjective), but for someone else, they might make a perfect sense. And like I said before, people who are native English speakers and people who are not native English speakers often see things differently i.e. spelling of the same word might seem natural and intuitive for some, but difficult and complex for others. The same is with pronunciation.

 

[NameWell]

When I say it is not true, I mean SH takes full ownership of description and uses your input as starting point, very often re-writing it. So they are fully responsible for any "insinuations" there.

In my personal experience, they have edited the descriptions of only small portion of names in my portfolio. I might be wrong, but I think that would be less then 10 out of 142 names that I currently have. Maybe your experience is different.

 

[trelgor]

You should really try tracking recently bought names for a couple of months and you'll see that names similar to the ones you listed above are actually selling. Furthermore, if you'll track names that recently won contests on Squadhelp you'll see similar names. They might not make sense to you (it's subjective), but for someone else, they might make a perfect sense. And like I said before, people who are native English speakers and people who are not native English speakers often see things differently.

How many names (seller owned domains) does SquadHelpn have listed? 25k? They’ve been around for a few years. They have a buyer base.

They recently saw enough of a combustion to really get with it, and the brandable space domaining community is bombarding them with submissions.

My take is that some (a lot?) of buyers like the process of crowdsourcing. They also dislike branding agency costs and failures.

I think it is mostly the process, not necessarily name quality that is selling right now. There is risk for misinterpretation of this, IMO.

 

[Recons.Com]

You should really try tracking recently bought names for a couple of months and you'll see that names similar to the ones you listed above are actually selling. Furthermore, if you'll track names that recently won contests on Squadhelp you'll see similar names. They might not make sense to you (it's subjective), but for someone else, they might make a perfect sense. And like I said before, people who are native English speakers and people who are not native English speakers often see things differently.

Unfortunately, you don't get the point of what I am writing.

If SH is saying that they are super-selective and choose only 6-8% of submitted names and the names like Nuv/iqe or Rising/Door or Ensight/ian make through, that either means that a) their sellers submitted such a trash that SH has to be super-generous, not super-selective, to let those through or b) SH reviewers are so clueless that they start with 6-8% admittance rate that they are probably given and then manage to allow such bad names, while blocking great names that would truly benefited the business, instead of causing them problems in the future.

No matter if it sells or not, those names are awful and will hurt the businesses that make a mistake of choosing them. -iqe is simply not used as suffix, for example, and will create range of problems, including losing business to nuviq, nuvique, newiq, newique, nuvic, nuvik, newic, newik, newweek etc., as well as confusion how to pronounce (SH suggests to pronounce as nuviq, which makes no sense, as the last e, should make "i" pronounced as in "ice").

And, SH ignored so far my question regarding -iqe ending. Will they accept all the top words + that ending? Or plus -is ending? I can certainly find better than "blush" for that and SH won't have to blush for offering sub-par names to clients that rely on its expertise while focusing on developing their products and services.

And I cannot imagine the ridicule the new owner of Rising/Door will face trying to explain the meaning of an opening and vertical direction.

I just awarded a 100K+ contract to an architect firm and I don't think I would have taken the firm seriously if its name was "Rising/Door".

 

[Furquan]

Unfortunately, you don't get the point of what I am writing.

If SH is saying that they are super-selective and choose only 6-8% of submitted names and the names like Nuv/iqe or Rising/Door or Ensight/ian make through, that either means that a) their sellers submitted such a trash that SH has to be super-generous, not super-selective, to let those through or b) SH reviewers are so clueless that they start with 6-8% admittance rate that they are probably given and then manage to allow such bad names, while blocking great names that would truly benefited the business, instead of causing them problems in the future.

No matter if it sells or not, those names are awful and will hurt the businesses that make a mistake of choosing them. -iqe is simply not used as suffix, for example, and will create range of problems, including losing business to nuviq, nuvique, newiq, newique, nuvic, nuvik, newic, newik, newweek etc., as well as confusion how to pronounce (SH suggests to pronounce as Inuvik, which makes no sense, as the last e, should make "i" pronounced as in "ice").

And, SH ignored so far my question regarding -the ending. Will they accept all the top words + that ending? Or plus -is ending? I can certainly find better than "blush" for that and SH won't have to blush for offering sub-par names to clients that rely on its expertise while focusing on developing their products and services.

And I cannot imagine the ridicule the new owner of Rising/Door will face trying to explain the meaning of an opening and vertical direction.

I just awarded a 100K+ contract to an architect firm and I don't think I would have taken the firm seriously if its name was "Rising/Door".

Whether its Blush or Bunny & Bo, at the end names got sold & get reported & get developed. It means " seller is getting $$$ from them" as a seller I only want to know this.

Other platform claim 5% to 7% sales through rate & I don't knew how to verify them.

Every marketplace has 'Good Names' & 'Bad Names' you have researched and found bad names for SH. Now time to go on other marketplace & see what names are their

If you think SH is not accepting good names but only accepting 'trash' you should better move on or start submitting 'trash' names as it's getting sold on SH.

 

[bowskie]

I appreciate you taking time to respond. I wish also that you took time to actually read what I wrote and did not provide generic irrelevant answer.

Being selective is good, except I don't see any sign of it, except decreasing % in some randomized selection.

Please re-read my post and see examples I provided from just looking through first few names listed in your market. How is listing Bunny/And/Bo selective? Infinite/Ignite? Nuvi/qe? Rising/Door?

Here if I sort by latest listings:

Sell/Vast. Please look up the definition of Vast and think how is that relevant to Sell. Also verb+adjective doesn't make sense.

One/Carousel...

Ensightian - seriously, what is it? Insight is a word. Ensight is already a made-up brandable. Adding limited use suffix -ian doesn't do much valuewise and creates bunch of possibilities of misspells.

Quite/Luxe - How can something be quite luxe??! It is either luxe or it is not...

What is Edge/larity??

Blush/is? So if I add /is suffix (is it even really a suffix or is it "is" as in "to be"? Will you accept if I start registering popular (is "blush" popular even?) word + is?

All of the above, and again I did not even have to go to page 2 to check these ones, doesn't show selectiveness. They are against your own guidelines.

FYI

Bunny/And/Bo now being shown as SOLD on marketplace dashboard.

 

[OnlineDomainShop]

I think SH is improving day by day , Today they launched something called "instant launch listing" ... Regarless of high number of rejections i still have 53 names on SH , One is very near to sale may be in few weeks i will get a sale ... I think they should increase the Review Requests from 5 to 10 atleast for each month...

 

[Recons.Com]

Whether its Blush or Bunny & Bo, at the end names got sold & get reported & get developed. It means " seller is getting $$$ from them" as a seller I only want to know this.

Other platform claim 5% to 7% sales through rate & I don't knew how to verify them.

Every marketplace has 'Good Names' & 'Bad Names' you have researched and found bad names for SH. Now time to go on other marketplace & see what names are their

If you think SH is not accepting good names but only accepting 'trash' you should better move on or start submitting 'trash' names as it's getting sold on SH.

And that is where you are wrong. The list of the sold names is considerably better than the list of lately added names, meaning that eventually, with better ones gone, the bad ones added lately will end up clogging the site and those sell through rates will quickly plunge. The whole business hinges on reputation and google search. One of those take hit, and it is a quick fall from there. See BR with google search hit and huge damage it has caused to them and their sellers.

Here is what SH shows for the lately sold:

Vestun, TheTech.io, BloomOwl, DineHive, Intelibase, Ultiv, Luxacor, ZenAndZenith, BohemianFusion etc. Those are better compared to the examples above. There are also some that sold due to SH effect, but wouldn't otherwise and that will dry up eventually. Like simpliyo, infinitley, socialeffex... Can't imagine a business with long sustained success under names like that.

 

[Recons.Com]

FYI

Bunny/And/Bo now being shown as SOLD on marketplace dashboard.

I don't doubt they can sell. Heck, they might sell "Nuviqe" soon too. That doesn't change anything from what I wrote. Those businesses look up to SH do the branding portion and browse through the names SH suggests are premium.

Before posting, I did google Bunny and Bo and it seems there is a business Bo/Bunny. I assumed it is either potential TM issue (if they coined the combo) or it is a part of pop culture somewhere that I am unaware of. Either way, did not and don't think it should be on a "super-selective" platform.

 

[Oruko]

I don't doubt they can sell. Heck, they might sell "Nuviqe" soon too. That doesn't change anything from what I wrote. Those businesses look up to SH do the branding portion and browse through the names SH suggests are premium.

Before posting, I did google Bunny and Bo and it seems there is a business Bo/Bunny. I assumed it is either potential TM issue (if they coined the combo) or it is a part of pop culture somewhere that I am unaware of. Either way, did not and don't think it should be on a "super-selective" platform.

Your criticism so far isn't constructive enough! Looking more like sheer hatred or due to the fact that many of your domain names weren't accepted.

Well! I think the issue is simple, go elsewhere if you don't like a platform. The sky is big enough for all beds to fly. Your emphases doesn't hold water.

Funny how you also have a company of your own, if i am not mistaken and you are here in a public domain badmouthing another company out of hatred.

I will also like to inform you that Brandable Domain names doesn't have to follow English Language principles. Some don't even have any meaning, reason why they are called Invented or Made Up Names.

One man's food is another man's poison.

If you have no positive things to say or criticise constructively, it is better you just focus on other things.

 

[trelgor]

Your criticism so far isn't constructive enough! Looking more like sheer hatred or due to the fact that many of your domain names weren't accepted.

Well! I think the issue is simple, go elsewhere if you don't like a platform. The sky is big enough for all beds to fly. Your emphases doesn't hold water.

Funny how you also have a company of your own, if i am not mistaken and you are here in a public domain badmouthing another company out of hatred.

I will also like to inform you that Brandable Domain names doesn't have to follow English Language principles. Some don't even have any meaning, reason why they are called Invented or Made Up Names.

One man's food is another man's poison.

If you have no positive things to say or criticise constructively, it is better you just focus on other things.

”Shut up if you don’t have positive things to say” is the mother of evil.

I don’t think there is anything I loathe more than when someone for no obvious reason other than siding with establishment decides to criticize someone for speaking their mind. It makes me cringe.

I don’t think SquadHelp needs your defense. They need development, and I’m sure they value input.

Criticism is a valuable thing. ”Constructive” or not.

 

[Regietron]

I think SH is improving day by day , Today they launched something called "instant launch listing" ... Regarless of high number of rejections i still have 53 names on SH , One is very near to sale may be in few weeks i will get a sale ... I think they should increase the Review Requests from 5 to 10 atleast for each month...

Please how can you tell that your domain is "very near to sell"