Rob Monster of Epik has become the most prolific poster on Namepros over the last couple months.
Rob is embarking on a lot of different projects and is putting them all out there on Namepros to get feedback.
Domain Microfinance Program
As some folks here know, I am a big fan of Digital Empowerment projects that scale.
Over the last year, I have seen lives transformed by people becoming successful domain investors on a bootstrap.
I have been discussing with a few folks about introducing a Domain Microfinance program for emerging economies and for young entrepreneurs.
This could be a Digital Empowerment strategy for helping people to bootstrap domain portfolios. The idea was inspired by a discussion with a young Angolan.
The idea is this:
– People apply to get a microfinance grant. To get the grant, they have to verify their identity. This is done in order to prevent repeat applicants.
– Domains registered are limited to .com. With a budget of as little as $30, right now that is about 5 .com domains at a promo rate of just $5.49.
– The domains are powered by an SSL powered landing pages which domain owners can optimize and then use to sell or lease.
– Once the grant participants generate a certain level of sales or leases, e.g. $100, they can request an interest-free domain loan based on their portfolio.
This thread is currently the most popular thread on Namepros for the week.
The second most popular? Another Rob thread, his discussion on hyphenated domain names and mention that Epik is actively buying hypenated domain names, this post mentions some of the recent buys.
Rob is buying up assets from Troy Rushton and posted on this on Namepros:
Has anyone used this:
https://www.namebrokers.com/
We just acquired it from Troy Rushton. Wondering what people think of it. It has quite a large social following, and we think maybe it is an platform to build on.
Also, what about a migration script that goes into your DNS / Uni account and mines it? I am thinking about people who have a lot of legacy data in their DNS accounts.
Rob made a post about an Epik University?
Over the weekend, Epik acquired a very interesting set of courses from Troy Rushton. You can get a sense of the content here:
https://learn.domainflippa.com/
The plan is to open up all the courses — they will be free. In many parts of the world, even a $49 tuition is unaffordable. So, we want to democratize knowledge.
The question on the table is about branding. Providentially, we secured EpikU.com on the drop this week and could forward it to a subdomain like university.epik.com.
However, there is also a case for putting it out there as stand-alone brand.
Rob also started a thread that has gotten heat from both sides on creating a “Deadbeat megathread” Rob went into detail on how scammers have ripped Epik off and what solutions could be provided to bring about some sort of framework to bring a unified solution.
Rob wrote:
The main question is whether NamePros will provide a framework, with the consequence that people who scam can be restricted or banned entirely. There are ToS, but the process for flagging abuse is not clear.
I do believe that the community that solves governance and standards, will be able to scale as it onboards tens of thousands of new participants from places where rule of law might vary very widely..
While I have heard no talk of this or any kind of rumor, it just seems to me that the next logical step might be for Epik to buy Namepros if there is a price the owner would accept. Again just a thought not a rumor.
Interesting, every other post on there seems to be from or about Rob.
im glad to see the innovation, new ideas and prices, $$$
now consolidation hasnt been good for industry, companies trying to extend their brand for their own purposes only usually stifle innovation…
id rather have namepros focus on being a good forum, for all forum members.
and rob focus on being a good registrar, for his current and future customer.
page
Namepros has gone downhill so far why would he want to buy it? Stopped going there a few months back when the snowflake crowd seemed to take over.
I thought Epik already bought Namepros. LOL
Funny, I just contacted NamePros support a few hours ago saying I would reconsinder my paid membership if this continues.
I think it is great that registrar owners participate and help out at NamePros, but this has become ridiculous. You cannot visit NamePros without seeing a lot of new posts by Rob indirectly promoting Epik. And now he is recruiting members as well. As I wrote in my message to NamePros, this looks like Adam Dicker 2.0.
Every online community has members which may look too active. Have you ever contacted NamePros support about other people who started too many threads to your taste in the past?
I see plenty posters who can be annoying if I focus on them. But I’ve learnt not to focus.
Unlike all others, Epik promotions are real and can save real $. So it would be strange to even question their popularity.
ABSOLUTELY TRUE!
Maybe Rob can turn NP around.
Turn what around?
I am thankful that the industry has a well-run message board. I don’t really think it matters who owns it as long as it has a sustainable economic model to pay for innovation and moderaton.
For those who don’t know the history, I was not active at all on NamePros until this thread was started:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/whats-going-on-with-epik-and-rob-monster.1128748
Although initially reticent, I ended up finally engaging on page 16 after getting some advice from guys like Mike Berkens who helped me make the decision to just engage authentically.
As it turns out, people like authenticity. As such, more people engaged with the thread. That thread ended up being the most popular thread on NP in quite a while.
Flash forward 6 months: now when I make new threads, people engage with those too. It is just organic. I am mostly sharing tips and tricks so that folks can succeed.
And now we have people from emerging markets like Nigeria showing up in droves, and they are also thoughtfully engaging the dialog. We are co-creating with the community.
As for hiring, yes, we are hiring. We did hire on NP moderator, Abdullah Abdullah, but he approached me and we had no prior special relationship. I think Eric Lyon is great in his role.
As for buying NamePros, I doubt they would sell to me. Funny thought. I did make one prediction about NP traffic growth in 2019:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/namepros-alexa-rank-predictions-for-year-end.1152491/
One thing that I think is interesting to look at is how to overlay NamePros with the Fediverse for single-sign-on. It is also interesting to look at ID verification and peer to peer secure payments.
Personally I love Epik and despise Nameblows so I hope Rob never buys them.
Let’s go there.
What would you change about NP? Yes, I know you need thick skin to endure some of the drama, but besides that, what’s broken, or needs improving?
I think the key to effectiveness at NP is being authentic — use a real persona and engage in a way that helps the community without worrying too much about pleasing everyone. You can’t.
i am looking to buy one word dotcom domains and am willing to pay up to $200 for the right one. is namepros the best place to post?
I’ve got to say…Rob Monster was one of the first people I met when I stumbled upon NamePros and the Domain industry two years ago, and he welcomed me with open arms. He knows that I know how screwed up this industry really is, and while he hasn’t been supportive of some of my ideas, he respects me as a business guy, and not because I’m a Christian.
Moving on….i really don’t understand the concept of Domain MicroFinance, especially when fewer than 2% of domains of a domainers portfolio sell each year. The example you and Rob give of financing 5 .com domains for $30 doesn’t compute with me. For example, if a young entrepreneur or a third world citizen were to buy 5 domains today, and assuming they’re good domains, the best they could hope for is to sell just one domain in the next 10-15 years. How does that compute? I think you’re better off giving them $30 worth of garden seed so they can feed themselves.
I’m not sure what Rob is up to either, but he’s better off investing in my new golf idea 9Time ™ or my idea for area code + keyword “waterfront” ie. 206Waterfront.com where area code “206” covers billions of dollars of waterfront homes where Rob and Michael Cyger live on the waterfront in Seattle. HELLO Rob if you’re reading this and God Bless!…i know that’s not politically correct, but it’s from the bottom of my heart.
In my opinion, Namepros is truly a super resource for everything domain names and a great place to build relationships.
I like what Rob is doing and I agree that NamePros is a useful tool.
I’ve only been a member of NamePros for about 3 years so I really can’t speak to comments regarding any possible deterioration of the NamePros community.
As far as an investment, I don’t see the two being a good match. I also read somewhere that NamePros is working behind the scenes to upgrade the site or somehow make it more attractive to end users.
Here comes the plug…. 🙂 I would mention to Rob though, that I own NameAttorneys.com. Now Rob could build a great business around that one to go with his NameBrokers.
As for NameAttorneys.com, well, you can PM me. Another guy to PM is Braden Pollock.
I do want to create an international database of freelancers for the domain economy, starting with people who can customize SEO landers.
We’ll need to check if the NameBrokers.com software platform can be re-skinned for other verticals, and then tie them together with single-sign-on and a peer to peer wallet.
So, that way you could hire a domain lawyer in some foreign country who has been vetted and reviewed for the required task, e.g. trademark, collections, asset purchase, or whatever.
Ray – you left out this big one over at the hyphenated thread:
Block-chain.com
$1,000,000 (111 Bitcoins)
No I mentioned it https://www.namepros.com/threads/hyhpenated-com-domains-are-back-in-fashion.1154810/page-2#post-7404293
I should have clarified which thread I meant. It’s not mentioned here:
https :// tldinvestors . com/2019/09/hyphenated-domain-names.html
It would just kill the forum, Rob doesn’t have the right temperament for it. You would lose a good chunk of the forum right from the start. Somebody would start a new forum and it would be very easy to seed with past members and guess who else? The other registrars. NP has reps from GD, NameSilo, Dynadot etc. I can’t imagine them participating at another Registrar’s owned forum. They would just go post at the new one. Most forums are hard to monetize, NP has showed people out to do it, very easy to replicate.
Namepros has absolutely some of the worst domains I have ever seen put out there and to everyone on there they are premium domains, lets be honest crap is crap, as soon as some of these disillusioned people get a clue I will revisit, but there is absolutely nothing to gain at namepros..If you are a serious domain person you gain a lot more focus and knowledge by reading the blogs that are relevant in this industry… plus I will never frequent a place that allows Adam Dicker , Sahid or any of the other domain crooks to be a member.. Ever
Rob could probably create his own forum, and offer discounts to users, and the namepros base would just follow him over there.
Thing is wasn’t Rob trying to sell Epik? Why get deeper into this, as for selling, poor RJ is probably kicking himself to this day, wouldn’t have happend if DNF wasn’t parted out, and then self destructed.
He would probably try to flip it for a profit.
Ye of little faith!
Actually, the far more interesting play for NamePros is to make it a multi-tenant platform so that anyone could build a forum community. It is also robust, versatile, and mobile-friendly.
To compete in the forum space, the main things I would say to change are:
– Multi-language support
– Single-sign-on, portable identity based on OAuth or Fediverse protocol
– Smart Wallet for stored value and zero-fee peer-to-peer payments.
Although I much prefer .com for investments, I also think that there is a deal to be done with a registry operator where a TLD like .COMMUNITY could be powered by a Forum software.
In case not aware, we bought a really capable VPS hosting company in May:
https://sibyl.li/
As such, it would be trivial to provision BBS instances on stand-alone VPS, and have them scale as-needed on an OpenStack framework.
Just thinking out loud here in case NamePros wants tech input. I do absolutely agree that governance and ownership needs to be registrar-independent.
Godaddy owns NamesCon. It is no big deal. I doubt it is a money-maker for them. I think it is possible to be a steward and support/enable community.
GoDaddy owns Namescon to profit from it though domain investors and end-users by selling them their
own products and services.
Epik would do the same thing with Namepros, then probably sell it.
What I would change at NP is stop letting people list domains for sale. Many people don’t go there because it’s just full of crap domain posts. If domains are going to be listed for sale they need to be vented first and by someone with enough experience to know if the domain is worth the price offered.
That’s never happening and I don’t think Namepros cares about the elitists that don’t participate there. They really wouldn’t be welcomed anyway.
I don’t know about the elitists stuff but I do know Namepros is never going to stop allowing people to list domains for sale. That would be 1/2 your traffic gone overnight, maybe 3/4.
Like someone once said to me when I ran the .tv subforum, “Raymond those educational posts you write up are nice, but please just sell my domains, all I want is the money, I don’t even like this place!”
Namepros is overrated on many levels, not to mention the website itself looks like something out of the late 90’s. The platform itself is utterly dominated by net sellers peddling the worst domains on the market. Namepros is literally just a domain vampire were more experienced domain sellers take advantage of less experienced domain investors by swooping in and buying their domains for pennies on the dollar. It might as well be a “brag about yourself blogsite” as far as I’m concerned, where top domain industry leaders brag about themselves to exhaustion. Like how Rick S. who coined the term “pigeon shit” and uses the term constantly to bash other domain investors yet if you look at Rick’s portfolio it is absolutely loaded to the gills with “pigeon shit” domains!
Namepros needs to just go away! I’d buy it for the ten cents it’s worth just to unplug it permanently!
Don’t waste my time!
“He would probably flip it for a profit”….that’s probably true, but he probably wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Digital Town imploding. Rob reminds me of myself, although he’s a lot smarter. I have a couple of ideas that have the same sort of potential as DigitalTown, and I’d luv to partner with the guy, but most true entrepreneurs want to do their own thing.
I just bought a domain 206Waterfront.com to give/gift to Rob because he lives on the “Waterfront” in the Seattle area along with Michael Cyger. Now that I’ve personally met Rob (NamesCon 2019), I know he’s the real deal. Rob, if you’re listening/reading this, we need to talk. God Bless you my Brother!
3 of 5 top weekly threads were started by Rob. Same applies to monthly threads. It’s just too much. I want to read something beyond Rob’s polls, ideas, etc.
Plus, I’m very skeptical about his ventures/services. One cannot do that many things at once with proper quality. I just read Rob said they acquired a VPS provider and they can now offer VPS service. What one would expect from a VPS service like this? Even Linode was hacked a while ago, how secure is Epik?
If you ask me – Epik’s VPN, hosting, trust ratings and everything else besides Domain Registrar is complete BS.
I’m taking a break from NamePros for above reasons.
I have no problem with Rob Monster using NamePros as he has been doing. NamePros have always said, if it’s not against the rules, then you are allowed to post. So as long as this continues, he is not against the rules, so he can continue to post to his heart’s content. IMHO.
Actually. I find it some what a breath of fresh air to hear his ideas. Even if they are self-serving. I have no problem with that. I would do the same in Rob’s place, and NamePros Rules. I think his postings and NamePros ideals are basically in sync. Providing some of the best information, and sounding boards concerning domains and domaining.
Where NamePros falls down, flat on it’s face, IMHO, is having absolutely no standards when it comes to the listing of domain names for sale. It’s a problem. But that is how it is, according to NamePros Rules. And I don’t have any better system to replace it. It’s a domainer-to-domainer marketplace, by it’s very nature. It gets abused at the bottom end with crap domains worth nothing, and at the top end with sellers expecting retail prices, sometimes a lot more. It really isn’t working very well. IMHO. They would do well to revamp it, or to drop it altogether, which I suspect neither will happen since it’s bringing in new visitors with the search engine links of their domain sales forums, which really are an anathema to buyers. Personally, I think NamePros would be improved without the domain sales, and some encouragement to Rob, and other heavyweights to post more often.
Rob uploaded an “Executive Summary” of Epik on NamePros a few days ago. I’m surprised it hasn’t received a single comment, because to me it looks like a huge “For Sale” sign.
“Epik “has elected to raise up to $2.5 million on investor-friendly terms”, it says.
By the way, it seems GoDaddy should be very worried about this registrar with about 400K names;
“The dominant player, Godaddy (GDDY) has a $13 billion market cap and a ~60% market
share. The industry has been awaiting a strong alternative. We believe Epik is it.”
I am sure the investors in DigitalTown will be delighted to invest in Epik judging from some of these comments:
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/dgtw/community/?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAJg01U31dSWCweaeU96wiT1FfPvrcGD3j3UTAqqkKA_ogAMhRJmUq764UB6ZJu18qQt_-AfoSHGLX1g889q15kOhKZqC5k0iTTnzI3r2FS6ZF2T_CzRhxpT7N_uqyz0oJ4dpV6_8nWFwf3IYEKp4iClo688c8L5SVHLE7OtEhBpe&_guc_consent_skip=1569567712
As for DigitalTown, that was a pretty clever one actually.
I was brought in initially for a one-year part-time turnaround consulting project. Within 4 months, I told the Board that the Founder’s idea was too little and too late — it was a project focused on High school sports for which they owned 20,000 high school sport domains, e.g. SkylineSpartans.com, etc. Since the company was woefully undercapitalized, I presented the Board 2 options: (1) wind it down, or (2) bootstrap a new company worthy of being public. They choose (2).
I think we built something pretty cool. The concept actually has great potential. You could watch my banned TED Talk if you wanted to understand the revolutionary concept of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDOhMk1zbNo
In February 2018, the company brought in a new investor. I actually voted against his investment. Well, within a month of that investor coming into the company, that investor was working to undermine and install his own CEO. They succeeded and I finally stepped down in August 2018 to focus on Epik. I could have easily fought to stay on, but was tired of the subversive agenda. Well, the new CEO came on board and managed to destroy the company in a matter of months. Tragic.
Long story short — I devoted 3 years of very long days in order to breathe life into what was a dead dog. We came mighty close to something pretty cool despite raising very little capital. Most of my compensation was in shares, by the way. Epik is/was the largest creditor. We never foreclosed though we certainly could have. I chose not to pursue that route as that did not pass the “do unto others” test. I did learn a lot about micro-caps from the experience, but am glad to be focused on Epik
Bottom line: this is not my first rodeo. I like our odds just fine — a whole lot more than DigitalTown’s odds. Oh, and when it comes to Epik, I own 75% of the voting shares, so the chances of a palace coup are pretty small. I am not saying we are without challenges at Epik, but I would say that management is reasonably in control of the company’s destiny and is also doing a decent job for the benefit of all stakeholders.