According to a press release out today, Axivate Capital a VC firm has “invested €350,000 to disrupt domain industry in “Undeveloped.com, a domain marketplace
Undeveloped , says they have “crawled and indexed over 50 million registered but unused domain names. ”
Undeveloped’s co-founder and CEO Reza Sardeha is quoted as saying:
“”With over 288 million registered domains finally everyone has access to these “hidden” domains. Undeveloped is changing the domain industry by making the buying and selling of domains transparent, easy to use and secure.
Before today, unused domain names were scattered across the web, making finding the right name both time-consuming and frustrating. With Undeveloped’s new service, over 50 million unused domain names are now searchable and accessible to buyers making it easy to connect with domain owners, start a conversation and close transactions safely and securely.””
“For domain sellers, Undeveloped provides an easier way to put domains in front of a prospective audience. We instantly set up this beautiful for sale page for you on your own domain name that starts organically attracting domain buyers for you . Besides that it just takes a couple of clicks to start selling your domains on Undeveloped as they provide easy-to-use portfolio management and negotiation platform facilitating domain sales.
“We were driven by our own experiences trying to buy and sell domain names, to make the process less convoluted”.
“How many times have you wanted to buy a domain only to find the page covered in ads and no idea who the owner is?
Our goal is to bring transparency to the process and the index is the first step to identifying what’s available in the marketplace.”
Personally I’m not sure how this marketplace is any different than Sedo, Afternic or Domainnamesales.com all of which offer domain holders a non-parking type of for sale page and I’m pretty uncomfortable with any of my domains to be included in a marketplace without my agreement.
About Undeveloped
Launched in 2014, Undeveloped is reinventing domain trading from start to end by making domain trading open, transparent and accessible to all. Open to buyers and sellers alike, Undeveloped offers easy, fast and secure transactions through their open marketplace. Today Undeveloped provides access to over 50 million registered but unused domains to its marketplace so that anyone can find and secure the perfect address for their next project or business. Buy and sell your domain names at Undeveloped.com.
About Axivate Capital
Axivate Capital is an entrepreneurial private equity firm that backs international growth and value creation for Dutch and European companies in the fields of Digital Media, e-Commerce, Internet, and Leisure. Axivate invests in innovative, early-stage and more mature companies with hidden potential.
“I’m pretty uncomfortable with any of my domains to be included in a marketplace without my agreement.”
100% exactly my thought when I read the release.
Sedo and DomainNameSales have the consent of the domain owners. Someone is going to go to Undeveloped.com, see a name listed for sale, and undeveloped.com is going to try to track down the owner. The potential buyer ASSUMES that Undeveloped.com has the consent of the domain owner. They don’t. The potential buyer is going to be really frustrated when Undeveloped says “that name isn’t for sale” or “we couldn’t get ahold of the domain owner”.
Their other value proposition, domain landing pages, have been around for years at marketplaces that DO have the consent of (and relationship with) domain owners.
It seems Undeveloped.com wrote a script to pull a list of all parked names, and then they loaded them as “inventory” and then sold the VC firm on this grand idea.
I have a problem with a company listing domains for sale, that aren’t for sale.
Example: KCM.com (one of my names) is listed on the site. The name isn’t for sale. It’s parked.
I feel sorry for the buyer that hires Undeveloped.com to buy KCM.com — just to find that I won’t reply to their inquiry. Anyone, anywhere can try to track down domain names for legitimate buyers — but they shouldn’t list every parked name on the Internet as their own inventory — leading potential buyers to assume they have some sort of an agreement with the domain owners.
Well if they come straight out with a six figure offer then I might take some notice, if I have not already set them to spam.
Hi Aron,
We actually don’t list your names for sale. Please check-out my other more in-depth comment where I explain what we actually do.
Ps: Just a tip. On kcm.com you actually have a “Buy this domain” link. You might want to change that if the name isn’t for sale.
My concern is two fold. They aren’t getting around privacy listing (but privacy listing shouldn’t be allowed regardless) and they open the door to UDRP suits by listing the names as available.
As for your three letter domain that isn’t for sale, if I had a buyer at $3m, I might perk your interest?
Approaching me with buyer interest isn’t the same as listing my names for sale on your site.
I have a problem with the latter. I don’t have a problem with a broker tracking me down and saying someone wants to buy KCM.com. I do have a problem with a broker listing my names on their site without my consent — and leading potential buyers to believe my names are actively for sale.
Scott
If you have a buyer for a domain I own, you could always reach to me and I’m happy to give you a commission on a successful deal
I have brokered domains fro several high profile guys in the industry this way.
However it would be a whole different ballgame for me to take say all of the Ham Brothers inventory and throw it up on Mostwanteddomains.com without their permission.
Likewise how can a company, and one I personally never hear of take my domains and list them on their site for sale?
What if I have a domain with a BIN price and change the price and the sell it at the old price?
How I’m I obligated to sell the domain from their platform
Also I have no agreed to pay them any fee.
This is not a “Disruption” its more like an invasion
On first reading it sounded interesting but after having a better look; it’s all hype with a healthy dose of misinformation for the buying public on what constitutes use. As pointed out the potential for misrepresentation is high. €350,000 to disrupt an industry? Either it’s a much smaller industry than I thought or their backers don’t see this as the ‘Uber of domains’!
€350,000 for that ? I can’t imagine what that money went toward.
Hey, they don’t have the right to show my domain names without my consern…
Hi Xavier,
Just to be very clear – we don’t list your domains for sale anywhere. Please take a look on Undeveloped.com and you’ll see that for yourself.
If you really don’t want your names to be listed in our index (which only contains public data that anyone has access to anyway) we can remove your names from the index. Do note we only connect you with end-users for your domains once we’ve got an interested party.
Take care,
Reza
Not to worry.
Exactly how is the public ever going to FIND their website? With $300 K in advertising? That won’t do it.
JR above is correct, it’s just hot air. We probably will never hear from them again.
I like the guys that pay me $10 just to reply with a price. Now that’s a plan.
even thedomamins.com is listed! So are only undeveloped domains listed or working sites too??
I think that was a test from Mike to see how our marketplace works. Someone with his credentials had added that domain on Undeveloped.com.
@Michael – I’ve sent you an e-mail.
So a domain with approximately 500 million webpages is “unused”. How much of that 350K was spent on a clue?
Hi guys!
First of all, I think there’s a miscommunication going on here. At Undeveloped we don’t put domains that our sellers didn’t personally add on our marketplace for sale.
Please allow me to give you some details about Undeveloped and what we’re actually doing.
About a year ago we launched Undeveloped in the .nl extension only. We used this market as a test market to reinvent domain trading from start to end. We believe in a more transparent way of buying and selling domain names. All practices in the existing industry leave your buyers confused that’s why at Undeveloped we have this sales oriented approach that should appeal to domain name portfolio holders/investors that actually want to sell more of their idle inventory.
By introducing this sales oriented approach and several layers of transparency, our existing sellers are seeing an increase of up to 57% of sales every single month based on the quality of their portfolio.
So in essence first and foremost we’re building this domain marketplace for sellers that actively want to entertain offers or sell their names.
The index with all unused names we’ve just launched yesterday and brings value to both for buyers and sellers of domain names.
On Undeveloped.com we clearly show which names are actually added for sale on our marketplace and which domains are simply registered but unused. We never mention anywhere those domains are actually for sale – we simply help the end-user to get connected with the domain owner when a buyer shows interest in a certain domain name.
Now, the motivation behind this move is to provide access to literrally anyone around the globe to all unused names. It has become a jungle out there, finding that great .com or .nl for your business has become too hard. That’s why we help end-users in finding all possible options so they can build their ambitious new business on the perfect domain name.
Now on the other hand – you as a domain owner – we only contact you and put you in contact with the interested buyer when we can deliver you business.
When we successfully through one of the many channels find an end-user for you we only present this end-user to you and only when you agree on our commission (always 15%) and you come to terms with the seller you conduct business trough our marketplace.
Even though I would really not advice it – if you really don’t want us to connect you with buyers for your domain names you can always e-mail us and we’ll remove your names from our index.
I hope this clarifies a bit what we’re doing. If anyone would like to have a Skype with me or one of our brokers please drop me a note @ rsardeha@undeveloped.nl
With kind regards,
Reza
So how did you and your programmers come up with the idea that a domain is “unused”? It doesn’t seem accurate.
Hi John,
As mentioned before, we launched this service just a day so it will improve and organically get better but here’s what we currently identify as unused:
1: Parking page
2: No page (can’t find the server page)
3: Standard hosting/registrar landingpage
As mentioned earlier the domains in our index are simply domains that are “Undeveloped” – when a domain owner responds with “this domain is not for sale” we remove the name(s) from the index.
Take care,
Reza
50 million is too low, Reza,
Some of the domain names that appear unused are brand protection registrations but unless you look at the complete set of TLDs at a country level, it will not be immediately apparent. The problem with standard hosting/registrar landing pages is that some hosters and registrars will have custom pages and some web developers will point unused domain names to their main brand site. (It happens but not as much as it used to five years ago.) The other aspect is that there is an attrition level on registered domain names. In some TLDs, approximately 50% of all domain names registered this month will not be renewed next year. While there are approximately 118 million .com domain names registered at the moment, the number of deleted .com domain names is higher than this.
I get your point John, the service is designed to become a living organism that gets refreshed continuously. It’s truly a beautiful challenge for us to provide an as accurate as possible index.
Isn’t it like so many businesses which resell public information?
This is the form Network Solutions has an interested party fill out on its search page, if he searches your domain:
Plus, other Registrars work through Afternic to broker domain names not registered through them:
afternic.com/arrival/agent?rid=2990&name=prettyjewels.com
afternic.com/arrival/agent?rid=64260&name=tinybutt.com
Many whois have BackOrder button next to results, such as:
whois.epik.com/prettyjewels.com
which mislead the prospect that the domain can be had for cheap, imo.
I think you guys are giving these folks a hard time needlessly. That said, however, I have a hard time seeing how it’s better than just the “jungle” of trying to think up a name for one’s business, see if it’s available, see if it’s for sale if not, then rinse and repeat as needed. To me having to wade through lists of zillions of domains rather than do it the old fashioned way seems a great deal harder and more time consuming rather than the other way around. The other way around is like sidestepping doing any mental work in the matter. The old fashioned way is what I’ve been doing for years, how I came up with the name and domain for my Web company, how I’ve found many excellent ones unregged, even an excellent one a friend used for her business a while ago before closing down due to becoming rich (lol). I plan to continue the old fashioned way, though perhaps I would use this new service to list for sales and be fine with giving them a 15% commission for any good sales.
P.S. Do not like or find the interface comfortable at all, and very much dislike it, as well as the font brightness and contrast (lack thereof) for the domain lists. People never seem to learn that the reason why they may be good at Web development is because they have practically super human eyesight and are comfortable looking at faded-out nonsense colors with faded-out low visibility and low contrast, but the vast population out there may need things to appear crisp, clear, bright, and with solid contrast.
Reza
To be clear I did NOT list any domains with your service yesterday but received several emails answering my inquiry which means you are allowing 1 days into launching people to spoof the system already
Not a good sign
This is a good initiative from Axivate Capital but the company needs time to improve.
Reza
On KCM.com so this is not my domain but I see its for sale but there is no BIN price.
In any event the owner of the domain name does not have to list it with you.
You seem to be putting the responsibility on the domain owner to do business with you just because he has an offer link.
I have people email many times a week asking if they can broker domains for me and I typically I say no
Don’t know who they are, don’t know what there negotiation skills are and at the end of the day if all they are going to do is ask me how much I want for a domain there is not any value there
@ Mike, Is it okay that Network Solutions steps in as intemediary on domains listed for sale on MWD.com?
For instance, taking a MostWantedDomain in the health category, thehips.com and searching NetworkSolutions, the user is presented with a form that states
I didn’t see KCM.com listed for sale on Undeveloped.com: https://undeveloped.com/search#/search
All I see is a button with the same type of form that Registrars like Netsol offer! What is the difference?
Scratch the above question. Obviously, Network Solutions is one of the partners in the auction network where Most Wanted Domains are listed!
For domains NOT listed for sale in the network Network Solutions is a part of, Network Solutions offers to be an intermediary in its Certified Offer Service:
For example, KCM.com is NOT listed for sale, but Network Solutions offers to be go-between on its sale:
https://www.certifiedofferservice.com/CertifiedOffer/offer/makeoffer.do?dom=kcm.com
Since I was searching Network Solutions Certified Offer Service, discovered a cool feature of valuing the domains, and there seems to be somewhat methodical!
Click on the link of my comment, above, which is not yet moderated at 10:23 AM California time on May 29th, 2015, the certified Offer service page for KCM.com . . .
Below the Enter Offer Price Box, it says:
and there is a pull-down menu where you need to select, “No, or Don’t Know.”
At least KCM.com, it supplies a value of, “Over $25,000.”
So I started checking some domain names. Mine are mostly three figures and one, four figures; a friend’s is between $9,475.00 – $11,975.00 USD. But one of mine – Find3D.com – is worth over $25,000 according to the algorythm, so it makes me happy!!!! :))))
Louise
I assume that Netsol like many other registrars are coming through either sedo or afternic where we all our domain names listed for sale with a make offer.
Netsol just didn’t decide to list our domains.
Not to mention that Netsol has customers and can offer our premium domains as alternatives to domain registrations.
Not sure what a site that launched yesterday has to offer
Where are your domains, listed, though?
If I search one of your domains, thehips.com, the page appears:
https://undeveloped.com/search?term=thehips.com
with a Get In Contact link: https://undeveloped.com/search/com/thehips
like all the Registrars do, even if your domain is not listed for sale anywhere.
So, what is the difference?
My domains are listed on sedo and afternic and there registration partners.
I could opt in or out of the registrar channel
The difference is this company says about my domains:
“thehips.com
Interested in this domain?
Leave your details below and we’ll help you to acquire this domain name.”
Who asked them to do that?
Okay, so it’s Undeveloped entrance as intermediary that bothers you, not the alignment of parked pages with for sale status.
Registrars have been stepping in as intermediary on my domains NOT LISTED and NOT FOR SALE bothers me a lot more, as Registrars are exploiting their status as search venues for domains to intercept potential clients. It is more an antitrust issue among the Registrars, is my view, than this insignificant upstart from NL.
Horrible search experience:
– anyone who uses infinite scroll should be forbidden from ever designing websites again
– flat design = too much wasted space
– header glued to top even when scrolling = almost 200 pixels wasted, on laptops with 768 vertical height it’s a lot
– no way to filter results properly – length/excluding numbers etc
– it would be nice if we could see creation/expiration date
– maybe include small thumbnails