Shutting Down and Signing Off
by Timothy CarambatThis whole idea began at a very unique time and sometimes timing is everything. That being said it doesn’t look like this is the right time or fit for DynaDomains. It looks like now we will be packing up and closing shop, maybe to revisit this in the future when the timing is more apt and our idea more refined.
That being said these things happen - they do more often than they succeed.
I learned many lessons and I'm sure many more to come, but the well ran dry and the market didn't want us and they make the rules!
At our highest, we have over $3M worth of domains on our platform, but no lessees to lease them and they didn't seem to want to. With the odds stacked against us - marketing was not working that was the end of the line.
$4K in Ads, 3500 direct emails sent to targeted customers, and....0 sales. So a real slap in the face despite marketing research and otherwise. We didn't account for the economy hurting small businesses as badly as it did back in January but it really had put a big stint in their budgets.
Oh well! onto the next one for another lesson!
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Is there any reason why there were no / little leases?
I think the problem is the pricing. $5 a month to lease a domain is pretty expensive. Most people don't know or care about the value of the domain name, and nowadays the domain name is so tied to the brand, that leasing it just seems really unattractive.
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That may very well be the case but I would contend that the idea to lease a better domain for a business for $5 a month isn't too much of an investment when the domain in question has a sale price of ~20k. That number moved around a lot but that was the general gist.
Your right that brand = domain is a big deal and we really weren't harping on brandable domains, more generics than anything so they could fit a brand identity. I would say a primary reason for the no leases was the poor targeting and marketing that I take responsibility for. This was very new and not something people get approached with so education was important but very difficult to overcome.
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The problem is that, people who understand the value of a domain name are a super small segment, and are not the segment that you are targeting.
It's not the same as leasing a car that costs $40,000.
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Hey Tim, harsh story but thanks for sharing.
Just reading stuff like this:
"$4K in Ads, 3500 direct emails sent to targeted customers, and....0 sales."
It's when you do the above and get no results, it's a pretty clear and brutal sign that things are not working.
I think you guys did the right thing - that's a lot of money to be advertising and not getting sales ( for an indie hacker at least )
Best of luck with your new venture.
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Exactly my thoughts! The technology behind it may be useful for a later pivot, but the business model is clearly flawed or was poorly executed (by me!).
So we will see what comes next! I think a good quality of any person is knowing when to throw in the towel and pivot or call it. It is what it is - the game is difficult but entertaining to say the least.
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Sorry to say this but renting domain names is such a bad and scary idea for any startup. Why will any startup dare to put the most important public address on a rent place.
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We were targeting small businesses, not startups, or online-only businesses for the reasons you're implying exactly! Small businesses with discrete service areas - like a plumber, mechanic, lawyer, etc...
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Bummer. Hard lesson. Domain leasing is a tricky thing. Physical businesses work well with leases because they can easily move down the street when things don't work out and everyone can still find them.
Digital business tend to get branded by their domains and permanently tied to them (type-ins, Google rankings, backlinks, etc.), so it's a much different proposition to lease a domain.
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Sorry to hear this, all the best for your new venture and hope you succeed next time.
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Nothing ventured, nothing gained... no doubt you've learned things you don't even realised you've learned yet. Best of luck with your next project.
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I believe renting domain is a risk that most businesses are not ready to take.
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Unlucky buddy, I hope the next one goes better.
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Unlucky result, but lucky to have had the chance!
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Thanks for sharing! Shame it didn't work out - did you try to sell your idea on a sideproject marketplace?
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I did not attempt to sell off the idea because I do think there is some validity in the technology that makes it works as it is pretty clever, but also niche. Also, I can't imagine a non-profitable business fetching me any appreciable amount for the hours spent haha!
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I feel you on this. Went through something similar with a business attempt.
It sounds trite AF, but I can guarantee you that in your next endeavour, you'll come up to a challenge and you'll realize that this experience taught you the solution. It'll feel great.
Keep up the experiments!
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That is all part of the game we play! I appreciate you saying that though!
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I've just read about what the project was about and it sounded really good, my first thought was 'AirBnB for domains, that's cool'.
I always wonder if a project fails due because there's no market for it, timing or if the founders weren't the right person for the project or a mix.
If you would like to share your experience I will love to have you on my community at https://getadvice.github.io so others can learn from you.
Best of lucks!
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Mad respect. Want to chat?
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Bummer :(
How did you validate the idea for domain leasing? Wouldn’t people want to own their domains? Have you tried pivoting to just selling them?
Have any place to see a list of your domains?
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Validation was done via marketing surveys (eg. Prolific) and survey results sent directly to potential customers and domain owners. The domain owners followed up when we went live, not so much on those previous potential customers!
We never owned the domains and domain owners list their domains all over the web. We didn't have the traffic to necessitate or get market share from the major players and where is the fun in being another marketplace!
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Take some learning from this experience and apply those to your next venture. Keep your head up and best of luck on your next venture.
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I still think the idea is cool. I have a bunch of domains that I thought I would use but never did or maybe never will. It's kind of like getting your feet wet, with a domain you can try without having to buy. And also I'd love to rent them out for money. :)
What about turning the idea into a landing page concept? For small businesses, they may want to use a landing page for a while to emphasize a short term campaign.. if they decide to go long term, then they buy it off of you... you could set up page like naindomain.com/special campaign for them to use. And then, the main hub... would showcase multiple companies or yours.
You would really be pivoting to being a marketing company rather than a saas, but as a small business owner, I'd love to have someone working with me side by side to help build out my first landing page, analytics, and so on. Any if you keep the main domain that will be your advertising right there.. so that will be an opportunity to sell your services or create a community hub of all the companies your are supporting.
Anyways ping me if you're interested in talking about it further.. at least to have fun throwing the idea around.
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All in all, I was very impressed (and envious) about how fast you were able to move. Congrats!
Also, although you weren't able to prove that business owners are willing to rent domains, you did find a market (the many people who signed their domains into your platform) and their problem (there is no profit coming from their assets). This is a great learning!
Perhaps this is an opportunity to pivot DynaDomains.
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I agree and hope to find one. I think there is a lot of room to grow in that space. It hasn't evolved at all since its inception during the .com boom of the early '00s. I think that space could very much use some innovation from an already tech-fluent customer base (domain owners).
I appreciate the kinds words!
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Sorry to hear about it, but I gotta say I'm not surprised. Domain renting has never been something I would be willing to do. Too much risk in not owning your own name on the internet, especially for online-first businesses.
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This comment was deleted 6 years ago.
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This comment was deleted 6 years ago.
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There are a class of internet businesses that would have benefitted from this service. I am not sure who OP targeted, and if my hypothesis is right, but here they are:
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Affiliate marketers who use media buying as their primary traffic source. It's easier to sell your product when it's on a "trustworthy" domain as compared to a random .com you pulled off the web.
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Ad arbitragers. I can see OP selling domain names for $5 a month. If I see that a premium domain name (like flicker.com) has a massive traffic coming to it from just the typos, then I could lease if for $5 and try making more than that money off my own ads - of course this is less likely since the domain owner would then never put it up for so cheap then.
But take local businesses for example. A lot of people I know have multiple domains so they can take up more than one spot on Google search. If GardenCleaning.com is available and I offer that as a service, I will list my business on GMB with this domain name - if I can get into the local box, then CTR for this domain is going to be much higher than joesgarden.net. Local box URLs can always be changed, so there is not much to lose.
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You are correct in that assumption. That was the targeted market. That is what we went after but did not get any good or clear reception. We were specifically targeting small businesses as you mentioned such as plumbers, lawyers, etc.
While the idea seemed promising I guess the reception or education of the service was a hurdle that I was unable to overcome successfully with the budget available and the way in which I did it
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Is there anything to lose by continuing with this business, though? Other than opportunity cost, of course. If so, we could brainstorm on more ways to reach the target market.
I see this as a marketing problem; not that there are no customers for this.
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