How I Came Up With a Telegram Bot for Domain Monitoring

I want to share how I came up with and launched my pet project: a Telegram bot for domain tracking that now has around 860 users and 2,000 domains being tracked.

• How did the idea come to me?
• Why did I believe it would be in demand?
• How does working in a company setting contribute to generating new project ideas?

Read on:

Employment and working in a team

After several unsuccessful attempts to build a profitable and successful web studio, our team dispersed, and each of us had to find our own paths for further development.

The choice of a company was not a question for me at that time. My immediate concern was paying the rent for the next month and having something to eat.

I didn’t pass the first interview, but I immediately received an offer from the second one and gladly accepted it.

I joined a fantastic team. Imagine a team of professionals where everyone is open and always willing to help, there is no toxicity within the team, and every initiative from the bottom is heard at the top.

Our team served both product and service roles. In the product team, we developed new features, tested hypotheses, and improved the product. In the service team, we supported the service and its users, fixed bugs, rolled out fixes, and solved customer problems that technical support couldn’t handle without our assistance.

Generating ideas for the future

Every day in the service team, we received feedback reports from users. If the reports for the month showed many user complaints about a particular feature in the user account or users complained about a part of the interface, the project manager took the issue for further improvement in NPS (Net Promoter Score).

NPS indicates customer loyalty to a product or company. Measurements are based on whether the customer would recommend the company to their friends, with a score from 0 to 10 points. Usually, this survey pops up in the user’s account once every three months.

As I immersed myself in the processes of the product, I noticed user pains and needs that could be addressed. In large companies, project owners and managers often overlook minor user issues, chasing prominent hypotheses whose implementation will profit the company.

Therefore, I documented all ideas and issues that came to mind during work in a separate document, briefly describing the user problem it could solve, how often it occurred, whether there were analogs, and the possibility of technical implementation. Then, I thoroughly worked through the list of ideas to identify a more viable idea.

Choosing an idea for product implementation

One of these problems was the adverse user reaction to emails that registrars send to them. These emails notify users that the registration date of their domain is expiring and needs to be renewed.

Registrars are required to send at least two notifications reminding users to renew the domain approximately a month and a week before the domain registration expires, as well as within five days after the expiration of this period.

The frequency may depend on the domain and the requirements of the managing company. Some countries may have legislative requirements regarding customer notifications about registration deadlines. In such cases, companies must comply with these laws. The registrar’s website should specify the methods of sending such notifications.

It seemed to me that users psychologically dislike receiving a notification suggesting renewing the domain a month before the actual expiration date. Users get the impression that they have been deprived of one month of paid service. For this reason, users usually wait until a few days before the domain registration expiration date and only then renew the domain.

Another problem is that there are registrars that send more than two emails and start doing so 60 days in advance. If you have only one domain, you can tolerate it, but if you have five or more domains, the user’s email becomes inundated with emails. These emails annoy users, and some end up in the spam folder.

Developing the idea and possible use cases

Is this even possible?

Can users set when to receive notifications themselves?

What if users don’t want to be bombarded with emails?

I thought, what if I make a proxy in the form of a Telegram bot between the user and the registrar?

Then, it struck me that sending notifications via messenger would be better than email.

People use messengers several times a day. Most of us work in messengers to communicate with colleagues and friends. It’s almost impossible not to see a notification about the need to renew a domain in a messenger, unlike an email inbox that we may not check for weeks.

Can the user control the notification date themselves?

Why can’t users decide when to receive notifications?

Why can’t users choose where it’s more convenient for them to receive notifications?

Whether it’s Discord, Telegram, or WhatsApp?

In the Telegram bot, functionality can be implemented to set up notifications for each domain, indicating how many days before the domain registration expires the notification should be sent.

What if I have many domains, and they’re all registered on different emails?

If you add all your domains to the Telegram bot, they will be in one place, and notifications for them will come to your messenger, even if they are registered with different registrars and on different emails, even if they belong to different people.

Monitoring competitors’ domains

Why would one want to keep an eye on competitors’ domains?

I later explored this scenario in various ways.

1. Webmaster or web-studio

The webmaster has dozens of regular clients for technical support or SEO optimization. When purchasing a domain, the owner provided their personal email.

One morning, the webmaster finds out that the owner didn't renew the domain, and essentially, the webmaster didn't keep track of it. This could lead to an unpleasant situation.

2. Domain collection

The second situation is that either a domain I like or one that fits my project or company is currently taken, or I see it's for sale, or it's hosting a site with an error.

I realize that in a couple of years, this domain will become available, and I'll be able to buy it. After purchasing it, I'll redirect it to my domain. Besides securing a good domain, I can also gain traffic.

3. Acquiring domains in a related theme

Similar to the second situation, if one owns an online store for children’s toys, one might add all domains related to children’s toys to the bot for monitoring.

You could tap into its existing traffic by acquiring an expired domain and redirecting it to its primary domain.

Does auto-renewal solve the problem?

In my opinion, enabling auto-payment doesn’t solve the problem. I’ve seen emails from frustrated users who did not intend to renew certain domains, yet auto-renewal charged their cards for 60 or 30 days.

Most registrars do not offer refunds in such cases. Attempting to refund and relinquish the domain while it’s still in the registry might be an option.

Dismissal from work

So, everything was already decided. It was time to start developing the bot and plan its further promotion. There was just one thing holding me back — my job.

I resigned from my position as a Software Lead Engineer primarily because I wanted to pursue my ideas. Since my ideas were related to the domain industry, they posed uncertain risks for me in case of success and potentially during the process. The company might have wanted to claim the development and idea, for instance, stating that I wasn't working on my job but rather on developing this product. In any case, I decided it would be fair and honest to both myself and the company to resign and implement my idea, avoiding any further potential misunderstandings, claims, stressful situations, and tensions.

How is the Telegram Bot doing now?

After leaving, I spent several months developing the Telegram bot, creating a website for SEO traffic, and working on promotion. I filled the site with content, adding around 1200 pages, performed SEO optimization, attracted initial users, and tested my hypotheses.

I spent approximately three months on website development, content creation, and SEO optimization. The advice I'd give to my future self before developing a new product is to create an SEO-friendly website and then focus on the product. By doing so, the SEO will already be active during the development phase and attract initial users.

As of now, I can confidently say that the bot is in demand, with around 860 users and 2000 domains being tracked. The bot sends daily notifications to users on Telegram. In return, users add new domains for tracking.

Conclusion

If facing a creative crisis or experiencing setbacks in launching projects, working in a good company for a few years is beneficial, immersing oneself in its processes and products. You’ll undoubtedly identify problems that your future product can solve. Record all ideas in a separate document, briefly describing the solution, target audience, and potential. During this time, you can relax, improve your financial situation, and gather resources for your next launch. Learn the techniques and tools used in the company for marketing.

Never give up, and keep moving forward 🚀.