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Review my startup - Lean Domain Search: The fastest way to find a domain name

leandomainsearch.com

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Re: Review my startup - Lean Domain Search: The fastest way to find a domain name

#141

Post by ansonparker »

freejack wrote: post #45

When I see stuff like this, I always think "feature" not a company. There are two directions you can take this to avoid the "but its just a feature" issue - a) build it so that you can license the technology to people that have made a company out of selling domains (domainsbot.com is a great model to take a look at) b) become a reseller or registrar so that you can fully deliver the service and collect the recurring…

I was recently at a talk where someone rallied against this whole "just a feature" argument. They made a compelling argument that there's a fairly natural evolution you see many start-ups go through from feature -> product -> business.

The rationale being that you initially build some specific functionality you can't find in the market (feature), over time rounding this out into a product and finally evolving into a business as you understand how to monetize it and where opportunity for growth lies.

You don't need to have your business totally conceived on day one. And in fact, finding where the business lies (or whether you even want to grow your idea into a business) is something you'll have a much better understanding of after a few months of being out there.

Personally (disclaimer: I run the domain search site Domize - http://domize.com) I think it's wonderful we can launch these "just a feature" websites and evolve them into products or businesses over time (or not). These 'better mouse-trap' sites are a fantastic, low-risk way of generating passive income and if you can string a few together you can potentially get to a stage where you can live off them. At the very least, you've demonstrated the kind of initiative and creativity that will provide you with a great talking point on your resume.

Let's not forget, both YouTube (embeddable video for eBay auctions) and Twitter (group SMS updates) started as "just a feature" and evolved into billion dollar businesses.

Re: Review my startup - Lean Domain Search: The fastest way to find a domain name

#142

Post by freejack »

ansonparker wrote: post #141
freejack wrote: post #45

When I see stuff like this, I always think "feature" not a company. There are two directions you can take this to avoid the "but its just a feature" issue - a) build it so that you can license the technology to people that have made a company out of selling domains (domainsbot.com is a great model to take a look at) b) become a reseller or registrar so that you can fully deliver the service and collect the recurring…

I was recently at a talk where someone rallied against this whole "just a feature" argument. They made a compelling argument that there's a fairly natural evolution you see many start-ups go through from feature -> product -> business. The rationale being that you initially build some specific functionality you can't find in the market (feature), over time rounding this out into a product and finally evolving into a…

I don't disagree. I probably should have been more precise than "its a feature". My real point was more "protect the real revenue stream". Doing all the hard work to find leads, qualify them, get the lead interested in converting and then handing it off to a registrar for a one time bounty is selling the potential short. There are a ton of ways this "feature" could be launched with a fully-realized revenue stream - just simply tossing it out back-ended by an affiliate program does a lot more for Godaddy than it would do for the OP.

I guess if I had a summary point it would be "don't be so quick to give away your customers..."

Re: Review my startup - Lean Domain Search: The fastest way to find a domain name

#143

Post by matt1 »

geekfactor wrote: post #135

10 out of the 10 "available domains" for the term I entered ("cloud") showed up as not available when I clicked Double Check Availability.

Fixed -- the site will now track double-checked domains that come up as registered and not show them again as registered.

Re: Review my startup - Lean Domain Search: The fastest way to find a domain name

#144

Post by ansonparker »

freejack wrote: post #142
ansonparker wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was recently at a talk where someone rallied against this whole "just a feature" argument. They made a compelling argument that there's a fairly natural evolution you see many start-ups go through from feature -> product -> business. The rationale being that you initially build some specific functionality you can't find in the market (feature), over time rounding this out into a product and finally evolving into a…

I don't disagree. I probably should have been more precise than "its a feature". My real point was more "protect the real revenue stream". Doing all the hard work to find leads, qualify them, get the lead interested in converting and then handing it off to a registrar for a one time bounty is selling the potential short. There are a ton of ways this "feature" could be launched with a fully-realized revenue stream - j…

I see what you're saying, but there's a big issue in doing this with domain names - the margins are slim to none (at least they are if you want to be price competitive).

Whereas registrars are paying 10%-20% on sales affiliates generate.

You need to think about whether you can actually beat this margin on your own, taking into account overheads like payment processing fees, customer support, billing issues & fraud etc. Not to mention the hassle of it all.

That's why Beau talks about branching out into hosting below.

GoDaddy make money off domains because they have massive scale, recurring billing, and a hell of a knack for in-cart up-selling.

Personally, I don't want to get my hands dirty with any of that!

Re: Review my startup - Lean Domain Search: The fastest way to find a domain name

#146

Post by j45 »

matt1 wrote: post #118
j45 wrote: post #37

Nice tool, I was looking for something like this a few weeks ago and most didn't "just work". A few things I noticed while using other services -- none had all of these in one place: - It would be handy to be able to sort by number of characters, etc. - some places allow adding of common prefixes/suffixes - Can you do a search of more than 1000 keywords via button to do the next 1000? - In the case of searching a com…

Great ideas. In the last few hours I: - Added sorting options (alphabetical, length) - Added filtering options (starts with, ends with) - Added a Moniker registration link Will eventually add more search results; want to make sure this holds up first.

Wow, those were quick changes, I'm already using it again.

Another thing that crossed my mind you might want to think about. When I go to alot of sites, I wonder if they're one of the offenders that steal people's searches (by tracking which generated domain they click on how many times), and then go register the domain behind the persons back after a few hours if they don't do it right away... only to make it available for sale at a profit.

Maybe a clear definition of "How we make money" is a good idea. Maybe it's just me, but I think that might not be the case.

Re: Review my startup - Lean Domain Search: The fastest way to find a domain name

#148

Post by slamdunc »

matt1 wrote: post #26
jaysonelliot wrote: post #23

One modest suggestion—I would remove GoDaddy from the default list of registrars that appear when a user selects a name they are interested in.

I knew this would come up :) I am relying on affiliate revenue for income and like it or not, GoDaddy is the largest registrar in the world. That doesn't mean its inclusion is automatic, but IMO GoDaddy is not evil enough to warrant removing it. Thoughts?

I've been happy with transfers I made from GD to name.com (namecheap wasn't bad, but name.com is more flexible with the way I like to set up multiple accounts).

I wonder whether they'd be willing to work on an affiliate deal with you. And others here could probably suggest more registrars that would be worth including.

Seeing GD in your list (at least it's not at the top) was disheartening. They seem very evil indeed, and not just in recent action.

Re: Review my startup - Lean Domain Search: The fastest way to find a domain name

#149

Post by johnstalcup »

the quality of the names it comes up with seems pretty meh. there is a lot of room for improvement.

for example, use tricks from poetry: assonance, consonance, alternate spellings, break the provided words into syllables and return names with multiple words that overlap on the last syllable one word and the first syllable of the next, do connotation analysis

Re: Review my startup - Lean Domain Search: The fastest way to find a domain name

#150

Post by hluska »

Hey there....

I think I may have found a bug - either that, or I don't understand what this site is meant to do. I searched 'media' and one of the available domains it found was 'medialounge.com'. Thinking, 'holy crap, that sounds like the kind of domain that I would like', I took a trip over to my registrar. Turns out that that domain is not actually available. Let me know if you need some system info and I can email it to you....

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