I do have long term ideas and plans here. I want to make it possible for a domain owner to have his domains being treated as real assets, possible to pass as inheritance, for example. For me it has been a concern, for example. What happens to my valuable names, if I die suddenly?
Isn't it what Domain Guardians does ? There may be a market but in my opinion it is tiny, even domainers can't be bothered to make those arrangements. Those who are incorporated can do without such a service if they have a partner, and a documented inventory.
PS: perhaps you could add a poll with multiple options to your thread, in order to outline the features that are perceived to be most important.
but just strictly out of curiosity.. how many registrars now or in past have been known to be started and ran by pure domainer(s) like our friend Recons here?
I have a few in mind. And they were run by well-known and rather successful domainers. The registrars I have in mind were terminated by Icann due to payment arrears and sometimes on compliance grounds, such as failure to escrow whois data or maintain a functioning whois server on port 43.
I understand that the registrars were not public, in fact they may not have been used much at all. Probably the goal was to manage their own portfolios and do some dropcatching. It makes sense to be your own guinea pig first and then scale up when you're mature.
So that was about a decade ago.
Either it was not cost-effective for them, or they underestimated the administrative and financial burden this entails. One registrar owed 13.5K, another owed 30K.
I think they didn't plan ahead well enough. A business plan must be realistic. Even if you anticipate to be profitable within a year you have to plan for less favorable scenarios and secure adequate, long-term funding for your business.
I also need to stress the need for
compliance. Your IT operations have to be smooth and reliable. Loose accounting practices or bad whois maintenance are things that will jeopardize your status as accredited registrar. Laziness, failure to address complaints or implement UDRP rulings will also cause problems and can lead to termination.
In conclusion, domainers do not automatically make good business managers, they are not always good at running a domain registrar.
Domainer-friendly registrars, or registrars made by domainers for domainers are not as popular among domainers as they should. I think that trust is an issue, and people are creatures of habits too.
It takes a long time to establish
trust. If I were to start a registrar I would not expect industry recognition in just one year. Not even in 5 years.
Look at all the registrars (your future competitors) that are more or less well-known/popular today, and when they were established. They are not young.
You really have to aim for the long term to be successful. In one year you will still be the new kid on the block. If you are not prepared for a
slow growth, you will be discouraged and lose motivation, and money. I mean it.
