Back in 2016 we started a series here that looked at the best and worst about companies in the domain industry. Over the last 30 months a lot has changed at many companies so we are revisiting the good, the bad and the ugly.
Each post will deal with just one company, readers are encouraged to share their positive and negative experiences. Suggestions for improvement are also encouraged.
One of the goals of the column is that company representatives will see how their customers think of them. This can lead to a conversation on fixing problems.
What is not allowed:
- Personal attacks on individuals at the chosen company
- Promoting a competitor
- Posting domains for sale
- Political discussion
The company in the spotlight today is Epik
Founded: 2009
Epik is my favorite registrar. After a bad experience with GoDaddy a year ago and decided to move all my names to Epik, and I haven’t looked back. They have great prices, free privacy, free for-sale landers, a good marketplace, great support, and integration with SedoMLS and Afternic Fast Transfer. Say what you will about Rob Monster, but the fact is he interacts with domain investors daily and understands what we do. He is constantly trying to innovate and add value to his platform and it shows.
Thanks Diginames. More innovation on the way.
Here are a few highlights you can expect in the near future:
– Industry-leading pricing on .COM transfers and at-cost pricing for most TLDs.
– A full escrow management dashboard.
– Enhanced parking analytics.
– Industrial-strength CRM for offer and inquiry management
– Multi-language Android app plus an upgraded iOS app
– Ingestion engines for importing legacy parking and inquiry data from other systems.
– Blazingly fast network connections to emerging markets in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
– Direct accreditations for most of the popular ccTLDs (adding 2-3 per month now)
– Automated payout for verified customers
– A massively upgraded Masterbucks.com cloud wallet for holding major cryptos.
Beyond the core of Epik.com, look for some other worthwhile innovations that domain investors will likely appreciate:
– Online tools for buying domains across marketplaces and auctions (look out for a guy named “Gube”).
– WhoQ.com for making WHOIS work properly again after GDPR and RDAP broke it.
– DNProtect.com for fraud mitigation and domain insurance.
Outside of the immediate domain theater, we are looking at strategies for making the Internet pie bigger through client-driven developments that map to internet use-cases that we think are not working well for humanity. Examples include:
– Us.Tv for video publishing
– Armored.net for cloud data storage
– TrustRatings.com for online ratings and reviews
– FullVenue.com for online event booking
– BitMitigate.com is going to challenge CloudFlare head-on.
– Anonymize.com is a full privacy suite.
Perhaps the single most interesting skunkworks project to watch will be Toki.com — a platform that we believe can bring another billion people online over the next 5 years by making local internet access affordable in places that have little or no grid and little or no internet uplink bandwidth.
Yes, there is a lot to do. Since coming back to Epik full-time in August 2018, I made Epik my personal priority. We make no distinction between build, partner or acquire. Our approach is capital efficient. This allows us to scale and innovate, while keeping costs low, and remaining closely-held.
We started 2019 with a 25 staff. I expect we’ll end 2019 with about 50 staff. We are adding 1-3 persons per week, comprised of exceptionally talented people from around the world, who feel called to make the world work better by empowering people through access to content, community and commerce.
Along the way, you will see a cultural norm of professionalism, tenacity, and transparency, as we work to make domains a more respected asset class. W will co-create together with forward-looking members of the industry, to build a set of integrated solutions that add value and/or make the pie bigger.
As for acquisitions, we did 2 in early 2019: BitMitigate.com and Sibyl.Li. These have been very effective additions for resilient cloud hosting through technologies like CDN, DDoS mitigation, OpenStack and Kubernetes. We will be active in the area of Decentralized/Fediverse hosting.
Most recently we did acquire Troy Rushton’s Domain Flippa, NameBrokers.com and NameInvestors.com which are in the process of being re-factored in order to deliver free online education and to (perhaps) scale a Broker network.
Finally, in support of our emerging market plans, I expect we will begin some controlled experiments in the areas of Microfinance lending, along with an accelerated effort to partner with national governments to introduce digital empowerment programs concurrent with ccTLD onboarding.
BitMitigate is nowhere close to challenge Cloudflare, which has datacenters all over the world. You must have never tried using it outside of the US. I’ve tried once with a Saint Petersburg hosted webpage and the site loading time became disastrously slow.
Anonymize.com is cool though. Much appreciated in Russia, with our evergrowing number of government-blocked IPs.
As for your question, yes, we are very familiar with CloudFlare. The acquisition of BitMitigate was done in February. It took all summer to re-factor the back-end. The front-end upgrade is coming.
Also, ICYMI, the Decentralized Internet, combined with cheap encrypted storage opens up vast new possibilities for creating far more CDN nodes than what even CF has currently.
For anyone using CF, they have to decide how comfortable they are with the idea of a Silicon Valley monolith cataloging IPv4, IPv6, etc. addresses. Remember, it started as Project Honeypot.
And yes, glad to hear that Anonymize.com is helping you out. The free version is quite good and it is also designed to resolve Blockchain domains.
Rob is the most innovative person out there that truly listens to domainers.
I have been using Epik for several years now and only good things, nothing bad to say! Rob and his team are super responsive, friendly, awesome.
Rob, it’s great to see you hyperactive and trying to shake or improve things.
Definitively like your enthusiasm!
Epik has been my favorite registrar…although we did have a Ricky start involving a website I was hosting and trademark claims that caused my entire website to be shut down and later active again.
As far as domain registration they are the best. They do not push too many advertisements my way and just let me do my thing. I transferred all of my domains from GoDaddy to Epik.
I have been using Epik for a few months and am very happy. I’ll continue to move many of my domains to Epik. It’s unusual to have a very responsive CEO answering questions and making rapid changes to meet customer requests. Excellent features. Very competitive prices. Willing to make changes. All good except in the area of expiring domains which is dominated by Godaddy so I’ll still use GD despite its poor design and performance.
Epik – Monster, is vindictive and and dangerous.
Robert, let’s be clear:
– You and I have never met — as I recall, I declined your invitation to meet.
– You registered an Epik account in 2013 and never bought anything.
– You and I have never done business of any kind.
Simply stated, I would hardly call you an authority on Rob Monster.
As for being vindictive, that is not an accurate statement. I am not one to cast a first stone. If someone is dumb enough to cast a stone, I reserve the right apply God-given intellect to settle the matter.
That being said, I hold no grudges — even my most determined adversaries will, by now, acknowledge this secretly. If anyone still has a beef with me, they are free to reach me as I am pretty accessible.
Innovation and platform that inspires confidence!
This is what defines EPIK dear people related to the world of domains, just what the market needs, sustained innovation and quality.
Congratulations to the Epik team, a big one gets into the fight.
He is trying to improve things for sure. If someone else did half what he have done i would move all my names.
But i dont understand why he makes faults like the PR for How.tv sale that in fact did not close.
And also a 3 letter backordered name that was not given to the seller after some bla blas.
And one personal experience directly with him where he said he wont be taking commission but asked after the name was sold.
Those little concerns makes me not trust Rob.
I am scared that a name of mine could escape from his platform but he still will have 1000 words to say after in forums where one thing will miss only. “I am sorryand will fix it.”
On How.Tv, that was covered here:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/terrible-situation-with-godaddy-stealing-searches.1103587/
We stepped in as ombudsman and solved a problem. Immediately after helping the client secure a domain, he got a big offer from a qualified buyer. That buy ultimately did renege despite having a legally binding transaction. The registrant did not take legal action but it remains their right to do so which is why I did not comment on the record.
As for the 3L.com case, it was a domain name caught on a partner registrar — not on an Epik-controlled registrar. The registrar that caught it had first rights to the domain and they capitalized on that right. We never made a penny on that particularly domain, directly or indirectly. A domainer made a big stink about it trying to force their will which I found frankly to be a classless move by that individual.
By the way, can we have per-transaction Paypal payments, without subscription? I don’t want to have to “unsubscribe” after every new domain registration, and whenever I pay, I get subscribed again.
Yes, we’ll address that — seems reasonable. Thanks for pointing it out.
No secret it has been shopped around as for sale as Escrow’s, Matt Barrie pointed out, this could turn things around overnight if sold to a party who has a reputation of running amuck.
Otherwise I once completed a 4 figure transaction, and I got a call from a private land line in Bainbridge Island, it was from the private home of an Epik employee seeing if I had completed the transaction in good faith, and not fraudulently.. Found it off it would not have been done from Epiks office, or from a phone registered to them.
Just wonder what happens if Rob sells, and bails?
As for Matt Barrie, back when Escrow.com dispatched a bunch of regulators on us, I did explore whether it made more sense to work with them, rather than compete with them. As part of that exercise, I did also do some fairly in-depth due diligence on them.
Matt and I did have one pleasant conversation. Nothing more came of that conversation until some months later when Jackson and Matt thought it would be a good idea to piss me off. It turns out that this not a wise thing to do. More here:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/if-you-are-not-using-epik-com-for-escrow-you-are-wasting-time-and-money.1119508/page-6#post-7329076
As for my future plans, I am now all-in with Epik. At age 52, I think I have one more great company in me. Last August, I had to decide whether that was going to be Epik or something else. You all are helping me figure that out. I have obviously done it with a true sense of partnership with the industry.
Thanks for the feedback.
Good – some good ideas
Bad – BIN third party domain price markups
Ugly – ownership
Hey Mark
Epik is owned by domain industry influencers. The roster of shareholder continues to grow as we engage new folks who have a vision for a new Golden Age of domains.
As for me, don’t believe everything you read on WikiPedia. For folks who want to go way down the rabbit hole and banter with the hardened doubters, that thread is here:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/whats-going-on-with-epik-and-rob-monster.1128748
The thread is up to page 105. I engaged from page 16 after getting some advice from Mike Berkens about how to deal with the brigade of finger-wagging SJW’s on NP.
In the end, I believe there is no downside to being authentic. I support lawful application of civil liberty. And, yes, occasionally that means some people’s feelings may get bruised.
Thanks for innovating Rob ! While the early domainer group has done nothing but brag about their sales and early entry, somebody is finally doing something to move the industry forward ! Sit right where you are early domainers, dont move, lol.
The whole industry is in on it now. We are playing with an open Playbook. Sometimes even Ray Hackney gets in on it. Like here:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/what-are-the-must-have-features-for-dnprotect-com.1156889/
That project is coming right along. Still need to find someone with experience setting up an insurance company, but all looks doable so expect this will be happening.
Epik is still #1, still my favorite, and it keeps getting better. I really appreciate the beneficial tweaks and enhancements to the software in recent months as well.
I would really hate it if Rob ever sold his interest in Epik and left. I have learned the hard way in life that things generally flow from the top down in an organization, with huge implications both for good and ill.
I’ve been doing “this” since 2001, and have never felt comfortable putting domains on auto renew at any registrar. Till now. Epik is the first and only registrar I have ever felt comfortable doing that to any significant degree, and so to my pleasant surprise I have been lately with a number of them. I used to have close to 1,000 at Epik, but have gone through one of my periodic cullings of the flock since then and have only low three figures there right now.
Epik is also the place I like to transfer domains to as well.
With few exceptions, I generally only ever register domains anywhere else because of the frequent huge periodic discounts offered, I mean specifically in .com. My understanding is that these huge discounts on .com are perhaps subsidized by the registry. Then I guess many people register gobs and gobs of them. I certainly did. Tons. It was nice to see that Epik did that too recently, first $5.49, the best I’ve ever seen for .com, then $7.49. It was nice that this time around it was Epik giving me the deal you can’t refuse for new .coms.
Occasionally I make use of the Epik affiliate link. Just the other day a $40+ sale occurred resulting in the 20% commission and a nice email alert. What would really be great is if one could add tracking codes such as “&something=example” in order to know whence such sales occurred, and of course have that appear in the reporting. Another plus would be the ability to use and apply whatever credit appears from affiliate earnings regardless of amount instead of having to wait until it covers a whole purchase. Additionally, I don’t know if it is financially feasible, but it would be great if there was something like a 5% lifetime recurring commission on such newly referred customers after the initial sale at 20%. That would incentivize to promote such referrals even more.
Also, there was mention of a possible pending Epik reseller program. That could be quite interesting depending on the details. I did try that only kind of half heartedly in the distant past with Go Daddy, and in a manner of speaking with eNom, and am frankly in the mood lately to consider such a thing again, though as mentioned all depending on the details. Haven’t heard any more mention of it, however, so perhaps it’s been put on ice.
Regarding software tweaks – I’m primarily an end user, then someone who would like to sell or lease. My particular “business model” involves using tons and tons of domain names, not just accumulating with only sales or leasing in mind. One thing I have really appreciated lately is that now some of the fields for making use of your domains when you are not hosting elsewhere remember data so that it is 1,000 times easier and more convenient to change settings. For instance, the nameserver including custom nameserver fields now remember your previously entered data. However, the fields for domain forwarding still don’t do that, so it would be great if something could be tweaked so that they remember the scores or hundreds of entries you’ve made before so that it’s just the same kind of easy bit of clicking and/or minor editing when making new adjustments.
So as one can see, no matter how great any option is, there are always positive “wish list” items which can be win-win for all. As I have said before, where greatness truly already is (e.g. Epik), there is nonetheless always room for ever expanding and evolving greatness. We should all live that way till the day we die, shouldn’t we? 🙂
Great feedback here.
I am a big fan of continuous improvement. These types of “Demanding customer” engagements are solid gold. The industry drives the improvements. Once a company has a few hundred customers like that, they can quickly become the gold standard. That is, as long as complacency does not settle in. As we scale the organization in the next 2 years from ~30 to ~300 staff, I will remain extremely vigilant to complacency. The people we will generally hire all have humility, integrity and leadership potential.
The grid editor for domain prices was an example of a customer-driven improvement. We had it deployed in production a few days later. This type of fast-turn innovation is possible when you have continuity of technical staff and a platform built for manageability. Many companies cost-saved engineering. When it comes to tech companies, that is often the kiss of death.
As for domain pricing, we will work very hard to be a price-leader — supply chain, process innovation, and strategic partnerships can all help to get deals done with registries that want to increase their relevance. I remain shocked by the low level of innovation that has emerged from most of the new gTLD operators. They are playing yesterday’s hits and fast approaching irrelevance as a result. Pity.
Any domains got sold or rented out using epik?
Well, quite a lot actually.
We sold a .COM domain earlier today for $250,000 for a client, involving outside counsel. Godaddy was the buyer’s registrar and they can certainly confirm that it got done from their side. That transaction is one of the larger ones I have seen announced by any of the blogs and Epik cleared it.
Although the money is fully in the bank as of this morning, that deal will not be disclosed. Why? Because that is just not how we roll. That being said, you can be very sure that deals are definitely getting done at Epik. The deals keep getting bigger because the whales keep getting larger.
Now ask yourself, who benefits when a marketplace announces that a domain was sold for a customer? I am quite sure the seller really does not benefit all that much. In, fact, if they ever really want to toot their horn, they certainly can do so, and we will validate that they did a transaction.
Congrats on the sale, I disagree here Rob, no disrespect but transparency and the detailing of sales that Namebio and DNJournal are what have helped grow this industry.
When a person or platform tells me they don’t report any sales, I believe it means they are doing little to no sales and no matter how much they protest, they are not changing my mind.
If Berkens, Mann and Rick can do it, so can you.
The buyer and seller are free to disclose their deal. I won’t.
For this case, I went ahead and sent Ray Hackney a redacted screenshot for the transaction, so that he knows the deal. I trust Ray’s integrity to validate the fact without disclosing the fact. He is, after all, a journalist. Even though he does not give me a free pass, he, like a small list of domain industry pundits, are governed by a reasonable set of standards.
Anyway, not taking your ego-bait. Ray is free to back up my claim if he wishes, but yes, we are doing transactions at Epik and the transactions are getting bigger. I am pretty sure we do more leases and more crypto transactions than anyone else. We also have extended many domain loans. The people who have those know who they are, and we also respect their privacy. That may sound revolutionary, but that is how business was done pre-internet.
We might change the practice in the future, but for now we think the practice of letting the buyer and seller decide what to disclose is better for the customer. We can talk anecdotally about what is selling. I also talk very openly about selling strategies that people who sell for big outcomes tend to use to get those deals. What you have to realize is that once people have a certain amount of wealth, they generally don’t want more attention. In other words, a little fame goes a long way.
Well I know I want to see you making sales because you are giving great registration deals and if you don’t make sales and earn commissions, you cannot give deals at a loss forever. So I think plenty of people are encouraged to see people giving them deals make sales.
I can verify that Rob sent me a redacted transaction for the amount noted on this announced sale.
The Good:
1. Direct access to the CEO. We don’t always agree, but my personal experience is that Rob is dedicated to building a top notch company. Always pleasant. Matter of fact, Rob…sorry I haven’t responded to your last email. Been super busy the past few days. 🙂
The Bad:
1. Can’t seem to get cpanel ssl certs to issue for my Epik domains. 🙂
2. I can’t seem to delete domains in my list that I have sold or transferred away.
The Ugly:
1. My phone had stopped being spammed until I started registering domains at Epik. If Epik is selling the info to spammers, I wish I could opt out.
Thanks.
On SSL certs, contact our support team. If you are using our cPanel products, SSL are automatically provisioned. However, if it is a free add-on domain, you are likely missing the CSR records.
On Deleting non-Epik domains, look in the domain manager for any domain, or filtered group of domains, under: Organize –> Remove
As for WHOIS, the WHOIS privacy is free and enabled by default. I recommend enabling it. We have not closed off Port 43 for SSL lookups as it is sometimes a source of domain buyer inquiries.
As for selling registrant data, we don’t do it and never have. I would not even know who would want it.
One thing we are probably not doing enough is blocking WHOIS crawlers. We’ll shortly put WHOIS behind BitMitigate for DDoS mitigation — that should help stop the crawlers.
We learned about Rob some years ago when hearing his interview with Michael Cyger on Domain Sherpa. I enjoyed the interview a lot and reached out to Rob, he graciously obliged and spent some time on the phone answering questions and providing advice about the industry. That advice was spot on and appreciated. I have since followed Epik over the years and am impressed with the growth through the products and services they offer.
We’ve had a couple of names at Epik for the past few years and looking to transfer more. It’s been a good experience thus far!
Watch out for the deals here:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/epik-com-promo-deals-and-happy-hour-mega-thread.1148974/page-24
We announced some aggressive .COM transfer pricing.
We would be a lot more aggressive on .COM creates were it not for the stupid cap on the Verisign rebate program. If there are registrars that are not hitting their caps, they should come talk to us! We maxed out our quarterly Verisign rebates 4 days into the quarter!
We are moving domains to Epik and registering new domains there. It is nearly unheard of to have access to the CEO. Rob is one of heck of an innovative guy in the domain world and is constantly improving the big picture. The support staff is phenomenal – practically no other company is as attentive.
When a company bends over backward to assist its customers the customers respond by purchasing that company’s products and services. This is what is happening with Epik. Keep up the good work!
Thanks Anthony.
There is some good discussion about innovation and new product updates here:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/discuss-your-epik-experience.1146613/
One of the things that I think comes through in that thread is the spirit of co-creation. It shows up elsewhere, e.g. on naming contests, but it really shows up in the way that people bring their ideas and also in the way they keep a high standard for product excellence.
As for the support staff, we are rapidly building out that team with local talent being added as fast as we can find the type of people that want to be part of something special. In the last few weeks we have added some great talent from Belgium, Nigeria, Vietnam, and Yemen.
Much of the credit for this progress on building out the A-team from around the world goes to Frank Meester, a fellow Dutchman, now living in Australia, who has turned into a great evangelist and talent scout. This has proven very impactful and is gaining speed.
Closer to home we have hired 2 engineers from rural Mississippi. This is an unexpected place to find technical talent, but indeed they were there. The impact of their inventive efforts will mainly show up on the upcoming Toki initiative as well as a clever project involving solar-powered mesh networks.