development Undeveloped.com and Epik parting ways !!

[Hemanttilotia]

As you may know, Epik and Undeveloped have been working closely for some time.

Earlier this year, we announced plans for Undeveloped to become a wholly owned subsidiary of Seattle-Based Epik Holdings, Inc. Upon further review, the companies have decided that rather than merge Undeveloped into Epik Holdings, both companies will be able to operate more efficiently if the companies remain distinct.

The two companies will operate independently as strategic partners. Epik customers can continue to use their Epik single-sign-on credentials to manage their account at Undeveloped.

In essence for you, nothing should change. You can still get the same great service from both Undeveloped and Epik.

To close, keep a close eye on Undeveloped in the coming weeks. We have a big announcement to share with you soon. The past months we’ve been working hard on something we believe will effectively allow the entire domain industry to make a strong leap forward.

If you have any questions, please let us know.

Best regards,

Team Undeveloped

Based on the email that undeveloped sent today, I think they couldn't achieve the targets set by epic guys and hence epic called off the takeover.
They say that some big announcement coming soon.
I guess they're raising VC capital or going to launch an ICO.
Anyway, great team and if I had money , I would have put into them.
Epic just lost a big opportunity and if undeveloped can expand beyond EU domains, to India and China, that would give NameJet a big competition.

 

[Embrand]

This is quite a surprise. I thought the acquisition by Epik was a done deal, but it seems it was never completed.

I wonder what the big announcement will be. Maybe cryptocurrency payments for buyers?

 

[campout]

I can't tell from reading the e-mail if the acquisition is canceled, or if it's still on but the two companies are just going to operate independently.

 

[Haykay2005]

Big announcement? Can't wait

 

[anantj]

I can't tell from reading the e-mail if the acquisition is canceled, or if it's still on but the two companies are just going to operate independently.

@robepik , @Undeveloped : Care to shed light on the situation?

 

[DAN.COM]

Hi guys,

When we set out to do the merger, we actually already calculated in the possibility of this scenario. We had set two reflection moments and at the second one decided that we'd be able to stay more efficient and nimble if we keep the companies separate.

Initially, we decided to merge our companies to accelerate growth and I can share with you that we accomplished faster growth rates at both companies when we started to work together.

At some point we simply put the company roadmaps of both entities next to each other and mutually agreed that it would be best if we'd not proceed with finalizing the merge and remain fully independent.

A part of it has to do with the direction we're going into with Undeveloped which we'll announce soon.

To conclude I understand the news might be a surprise but for all individuals internally involved it's not a big deal. I really enjoyed working with the Epik team and still am happy we made this move a couple of months ago.

Now, we're laser focused on getting everything into place for what's coming and I guarantee you all that you won't be disappointed .

Kind regards,

Reza

 

[OmarVG]

I knew from the beginning that acquisition wont work, because when an American company buy another foreign company, they want to change almost everything, including staff team, operation procedures, goals etc.
And when I read the Undeveloped announcement email, they mentioned, " the Undeveloped staff will remain exactly the same and wont change our strategy and ideas". That gave me a Red flag, and a couple months later, they revealed they cant work together, which was very predictable. Americans and Europeans don't think the same at all.
And for customers and clients, its not a good image they closed the deal that way, despite they stated they ended their business relationship in a "good way".

Domain marketplaces comes and goes every year, only the good ones survive in the domain industry tough and competitive business.

 

[Rob Monster]

I knew from the beginning that acquisition wont work, because when an American company buy another foreign company, they want to change almost everything, including staff team, operation procedures, goals etc.
And when I read the Undeveloped announcement email, they mentioned, " the Undeveloped staff will remain exactly the same and wont change our strategy and ideas". That gave me a Red flag, and a couple months later, they revealed they cant work together, which was very predictable. Americans and Europeans don't think the same at all.
And for customers and clients, its not a good image they closed the deal that way, despite they stated they ended their business relationship in a "good way".

Domain marketplaces comes and goes every year, only the good ones survive in the domain industry tough and competitive business.

@OmarVG is somewhat prescient here. As a Dutch-American, and as a father of 5, with extensive cross-border acquisition experience, I have a reasonable understanding of cultural differences, both between countries and between age groups. I am also known as a hands-on leader who tends to have strong views on how to get things done as well as high expectations of the pace with which things get done. I think Reza and team are good guys with good technology. However, it was not a fit in terms of culture or pace. That said, the companies are genuinely operating as a partners on a going forward basis. My main regret is that we did not secure the European time-zone operating center that I wanted. Lord-willing, we'll close that gap in due course. I will leave it at that.

 

[jideofor]

I knew from the beginning that acquisition wont work, because when an American company buy another foreign company, they want to change almost everything, including staff team, operation procedures, goals etc.
And when I read the Undeveloped announcement email, they mentioned, " the Undeveloped staff will remain exactly the same and wont change our strategy and ideas". That gave me a Red flag, and a couple months later, they revealed they cant work together, which was very predictable. Americans and Europeans don't think the same at all.
And for customers and clients, its not a good image they closed the deal that way, despite they stated they ended their business relationship in a "good way".

Domain marketplaces comes and goes every year, only the good ones survive in the domain industry tough and competitive business.

Exactly and I would go with the Europeans strategy. For the growth of any entity, it is best to RETAIN every persons that has contributed to the development and expansion of the company because of the woven culture that existed before acquisitions.

Take a look at the mess at Escrow, Hostgator, Warrior forum for instance and tell me what happened when everything was changed? increased or decreased growth? You judge.... CULTURE has a lot to do with any system/

 

[Mister Funsky]

My main regret is that we did not secure the European time-zone operating center that I wanted. Lord-willing, we'll close that gap in due course. I will leave it at that.

I am sure things have developed as they have for a good reason. A euro time zone presence would be nice and I am sure you will find a solution. The undeveloped interface is/was nice but the commission was a little steep...the Epik sales structure is unique and more than fair. Best wishes.

 

[OmarVG]

The Undeveloped DNS had issues yesterday. In this business name servers are critical, any fail and can ruin domain sales specially NS of a marketplace.

That's it, Iam going to stick with NameJet, Afternic/GoDaddy and Sedo and Flippa.

 

[Kate]

How do you come to the conclusion it's a DNS problem and that the problem is not their end, and not your local DNS resolver for example ?

 

[anantj]

The Undeveloped DNS had issues yesterday. In this business name servers are critical, any fail and can ruin domain sales specially NS of a marketplace.

That's it, Iam going to stick with NameJet, Afternic/GoDaddy and Sedo and Flippa.

Sedo has had several DNS issues, issues with malware and other miscellaneous issues.
Afternic is terribly slow, their interface goes down quite frequently and is very frequently unusable (for me at least) if I set portolio list count to 50
GoDaddy was down a few weeks ago. Search the forums.

Good luck if you start leaving services/platforms for minor, occasional technical issues that happen to the biggest of tech companies including Google, MS, Apple, Amazon etc. Very shortsighted and ignorant reaction

 

[OmarVG]

How do you come to the conclusion it's a DNS problem and that the problem is not their end, and not your local DNS resolver for example ?

I got 2 emails from Undeveloped, one last Saturday and the other yesterday... Iam NOT assuming their DNS had issues this past weekend, they informed their customers by email.

I don't like that marketplace anyways, I got purchase email confirmation and the buyer never pays. I stopped listing domains there since last year.
I even sent an email to Undeveloped staff this year when they sent out emails inviting domainers to make auctions there, and never heard back from them.

Its a total waste of time listing domains everywhere, I just changed my sales strategy to be more selective and picky when using domain marketplaces.

 

[platey]

When two companies merge two ceo's usually become one at the expense of one of the ceo 's either losing their job or taking up a lesser job in a new merged company

Only one steering wheel needed to drive a car