@BradWilson and
@oldtimer .. the problem is that there is nothing new about this .. most people who try domaining fail. There is nothing about this program that will change that. In fact, the goal is to reach out and help those who are economically challenged .. a worthy objective .. but it's an unfortunate fact the majority of people this program would target are even less likely to succeed because of the
UNDENIABLE English language skills needed to have the best chance of succeeding at the domain business. It's also an unfortunate fact that there are other elements to successful domaining that myself,
@JB Lions and others have pointed out already, that most such people haven't been exposed to.
I'm not saying there isn't going to be an exception here or there, someone with enough domain intelligence to overcome such obstacles, but even then the vast majority do not succeed .. so compound 2 extremely challenging factors and you'r left asking what's really the point here? To get people's hope's up only to have 99% of them be disappointed?
Then .. as impossible as it sounds already, they're limited to 3 ($25.50) or 4 ($34) domains and a one year cut-off. The significantly decreases the chances even more.
It's a really nice idea in theory, but in the end when you look at the undeniable challenges and obstacles involved, the math unfortunately isn't even close .. like truly not even close to being close.
I'm not saying that there won't be a couple who could succeed, but there's no denying the mountains of others who wouldn't.
If you want to have something like this succeed, then you have to attack the numbers. Solid domain education is very important. I suppose where something like this could work is for people EXITING
@Michael Cyger's DNAcademy course. Like upon completion of the course, Michael could give them a code to use at Epik that would set up a special account with the $30 bursary and other restrictions ($30 needs to be paid back if profits are made .. which in itself it's not an easy thing to set up). That being said, graduating from DNAcademy only (vastly) increases your chances of succeeding in domaining, it does not guarantee it, and more importantly it obviously is limited to teaching you the technical skills, there are still language, cultural and business skills that someone needs in tandem with such domaining skills.
Plus there's the obvious fact that people (rightfully) need to pay for DNAcademy. It's not a little trivial program. So for most people who have invested in their domain education by paying for the course AND investing their personal time in passing the course .. ultimately for them the $30 isn't really an issue.
I'm sure
@Rob Monster could talk to
@Michael Cyger about getting some sort of wholesale rate for such a program, but in the end, if people don't have to pay something, they are going to have less motivation, which ultimately would not be fair to Michael as people with less motivation are usually significantly more challenging to teach (again, I'm NOT saying there will not be some individuals who absolutely shine, I'm looking at the numbers and averages in order to calculate the overall math of the feasibility of such a program).
In the end the smart money would be to limit any such funds to DNAcademy "scholarships".
For example, let's say Rob or someone he trusts finds a great motivated candidate .. and let's say Michael is willing to drop the price of DNAcademy to $200 (I'm simply assuming this because the price is $246 and there is an affiliate program, so remove what could have been paid in affiliate fees and you get to about $200). Then perhaps the candidate puts in $50 or $100 (whatever would be significant but not crippling in that person's country), and Rob/Epik puts in the rest at Epik's risk based on their candidate screening process.
From there, upon completion of the course Epik would set up their account with the initial amount the candidate paid ($30 or $100), leaving them with a total of $200 that was granted to them at two-stages at effectively no risk. So ultimately in theory they would owe the program $200, but obviously if they don't sell any domains and run out of funds, then because it was a grant, they aren't on the hook for anything.
I'm sceptical the numbers could work for that, and there are still the VERY significant non-technical knowledge required to succeed in domaining, but doing it that way would vastly increase the odds of success from "virtually impossible" to "not very likely".
I suppose to increase odds even more there could be a mentoring program with Epik staff who have also proven to be particularly skilled AND profitable domainers. Effectively an extra filter of (REQUIRED KNOWLEDGE) to approve/disapprove the very few possible domain acquisitions anyone could make with such limited funding. Because of such a low number of potential acquisitions, it wouldn't be unreasonable to have the candidates submit a bit of pre-research on potential buyers for the domain or why they see value in it. The more information the screeners have to judge, the better the odds as the filtration process would be even more optimised.
Ultimately it's still a challenge, and in order for it to be self-fulfilling, ultimately the successful candidates to to generate Epik enough PROFIT to pay for the people who didn't complete the course and those who very likely never end up selling one of the VERY few domains they acquired (remember there isn't much profit on $8.49 registrations .. although that could be made up significantly at the end with $9+ closeouts
IF the domains are good enough).
*IF* the pre-screening was an aggressive filtration to see
who was truly bright/promissing
*AND* the candidates made the effort to
pass a serious and complete course like DNAcademy
*AND* there was a good and easy structured system back at Epik ...
Then I wouldn't be against donating a bit of time to approve/disapprove acquisition requests by the candidates if it was truly helping someone from a less prosperous corner of the world. In fact, I think if the resulting candidates really made it through all of the above, then I think you'd get a few people like me who could donate what would ultimately likely only be a few minutes a week.
But it's very important to note .. that even after doing everything I've mentioned, you've still only significantly increased the chances of success ... but increased from virtually zero to a number that ultimately I still don't think would justify all of the above. How the initial screening/filtration process is done and who actually qualifies is obviously the biggest variable. The ideal candidates would be people already at NamePros showing interest and asking the right questions ... but if they are showing interest and asking the right questions, it's still impossible to know what their financial situation is like, so finding the ideal candidates is in itself a huge obstacle.
