I'm thinking of turning my domain obsession into a side project. Would you subscribe?
I've been into domains for years.
Not as a full-time domain investor or broker - I just genuinely enjoy the hunt. I probably spend an embarrassing amount of time looking through fresh domains, expired domains, marketplaces, and new listings trying to find names that seem overlooked.
It made me wonder if this hobby could become a small side business.
The idea is a free weekly newsletter where I share a handful of .com and .ai domains that I think are interesting, undervalued, or just strong startup brands.
Obviously not every domain will appreciate in value (nobody can promise that), but the goal is to surface names that most people probably wouldn't have discovered on their own.
I know there are already services like Ungrabbed and a few others doing something similar. This wouldn’t be trying to reinvent that, more just my own take on it.
Just wondering if this could be a small, useful side thing.
Before I go spend time setting it up, figured I’d sanity check it here.
- Would you subscribe to something like this?
- What would make it actually useful vs just another email you ignore?
- If you’ve used stuff like Ungrabbed, what do you like / not like about it?
- Or is this just one of those ideas that sounds fun but nobody really needs?
Would appreciate honest takes, even if it’s “I wouldn’t use this.”
The judgment point in the comments is the real insight, anyone can scrape a list of domains but explaining why one's undervalued is the part that's hard to copy. Leaning into teaching something new each issue seems like the difference between a one-time open and someone who reads every week. What would the actual framework be for you, like what specifically makes a domain undervalued in your eyes?
I think you could win by picking a specific angle instead of competing on the same broad list as Ungrabbed. Like - are these domains for designers? SaaS founders? Investors? If you build taste in one audience around domains that work for them specifically, you become irreplaceable.
The "why" people mentioned is crucial but the real defensibility is being the person that specific group trusts for domain picks. Early audience focus beats broad domain discovery every time.
SOLID TAKE! Thank You! Leaning towards SaaS related domains ✨
Domain obsession + side project is exactly how The Brief Network started. 8 niche newsletters, zero overlap, one domain per newsletter. The monetization magic happens when you solve a specific problem better than anyone else. What problem are you solving with your domain play?
I think there are two problems I'm trying to solve. For founders, it's saving them hours of digging through marketplaces to find a strong brandable domain. For investors, it's finding domains that I think are worth paying attention to before they get discovered by everyone else.
The problem: domain enthusiasts have capital, but no clear market for domains. The solution: monetizing the domain obsession into infrastructure (data, insights, or matching buyers/sellers). The Brief Network angle: we validated that niche monetization beats generalist monetization. A domain-obsession-focused newsletter targeting domain investors would crush a generalist "startup newsletter."
The comment about the "why" behind each pick being the only defensible edge is the right frame. A list of interesting domains is a commodity. The judgment that makes one domain worth $500 and another worth $50,000 is not, and that's the thing a newsletter actually needs to teach people to be worth opening every week.
The retention test is simple — if someone reads three issues and still can't spot value faster than they could before, the newsletter isn't doing its job. That's the bar worth building toward before worrying about subscriber counts.
That's a great point. I think the "why" behind each pick could end up being the real differentiator.
And that retention test is gold. That's definitely a great north star to build towards.
Love seeing this. How are you planning to get your first users? I'm at the validation stage myself and finding that the hardest part.
Thanks! Honestly, I'm still figuring that out 😅
Right now I'm just trying to validate whether people actually want this before I spend time building anything.
If the response is positive, I'll probably start by sharing it on Indie Hackers, X, Reddit, and a few startup/founder communities. Nothing too fancy to begin with.
Curious though, what are you validating? Maybe I can bounce around some ideas with you too.
I think the biggest challenge isn't getting people to subscribe it's giving them a reason to stay subscribed.
If every email teaches me something about choosing a great domain or spotting opportunities I would've missed, I'd definitely keep reading. I'd be interested to see where you take this.
That's a really good point. Getting someone to subscribe is one thing, but earning a spot in their inbox every week is a much higher bar.
Honestly, I don't see this becoming an educational newsletter anytime soon... but I do think explaining why I picked each domain is important. Hopefully that gives people a better sense of the thinking behind the picks, not just a list of domains.
Most domain newsletters compete on finding names. That advantage tends to disappear once enough people are looking at the same list.
The defensible part is the judgment behind the picks. If subscribers come away understanding why a domain is interesting instead of just seeing another list, the newsletter becomes much harder to replace.
That's a great point. I don't want it to turn into a teaching newsletter, but I can definitely see the value in sharing why I thought a domain was worth picking up.
That's the tension I found interesting.
The moment you explain why a pick is interesting, you're no longer just curating domains—you're shaping how subscribers learn to judge them.
That sounds like a small distinction, but it has much bigger consequences than it first appears.
If you're interested, what's the best email to reach you on?