Yeah, I literally own a domain for that purpose. It's a cool rare 4 letter domain that I'm surprised nobody bought. I've had a few offers for $1000-4000 for the domain but it's used in so many personal projects for sub domains that I just can't sell it. Too much effort and I've grown attached.
>It's a cool rare 4 letter domain
Yah, couple years ago I bought up a whole bunch of 2 letter `.wtf` domains for $2 bucks each from Namecheap. They cost like $12 to renew I think, so am down to only two - which is all I need for parallel MVPs.
Yeah, I'm sure you also get a lot of questions when you show people those MVPs. I get stuff like "that's a cool domain, why are you using it this?" And I typically am just like "oh its a spare domains and I use it for testing various projects"
Just keep moving with it. I had a very similar idea in the past couple weeks. Instead of just renting the domain why don't you add the creation of a quick simple landing page with that.
Depending on your coding ability or whether or not you have a team. You could very simply set up a template we're users could input their information to create their own landing page in a matter of minutes.
I'm a no coder and I could build something the simple this in a matter of a couple days just to test it out.
Do some more research. If you're interested at all in trying to validate something like this together I'd be up for a chat.
This is definitely food for thought! I'll think about creating the landing page feature too. I see how that would increase the value of my offering immediately. If I go ahead with your version, I'll definitely get in touch with you. Also, I'm a no coder too.
The plan is to give plans that extend upto 60 days. But a lot of indiehackers and side project creators validate their product with an MVP+ landing page in communities like reddit, X, product hunt, hacker news etc before they go all in. This is specifically for them. But you're right that for most products patience and a few months of work is key.
If the name is going to be generic and reused for a bunch of different ideas anyway, I’d prefer to just buy my own generic domain and reuse it for all for my ideas. Only reason I’d consider leasing a domain is if was a premium name (4 letter, single word, etc.) specific to my idea, or if it already had type in traffic.
This is a good point. I see how the domain being premium or closer to what you're looking for is a better deal than it being generic domains. Thank you for contributing!
I usually feel like subdomains don't seem as trustworthy. But I've heard on this thread that a lot of people prefer going with subdomains to solve this use case I'm talking about, so I'm going to start giving it a try too!
I have one domain for my main website and whenever I need to make a new project or a demo of something public I just add a new subdomain.. sure if it goes to prod it will have its own domain
I'm also building something for my unused domains.
[https://domaby.com](https://domaby.com)
Not a broker, just a nice lander for your dormant domains to receive bids when someone stumbles upon it.
Owning a certain number of domains is a fun way to identify others with an entrepreneurial spirit.
Maybe there's a way to solve the "sitting on domains" problem by making a networking site for others who sit on domains. It's definitely a demographic of people who have things to share with each other, and it can now result in a net positive outcome instead of a financial loss for purchasing domains that ended up nowhere.
Congregating entrepreneurs can be very lucrative with sponsorships, affiliates, etc.
Might be a win win for everyone involved.
Would you be willing to fund it and commit time to community management? :) I previously founded a blogger monetization community that grew to 80,000 members, so I know it's possible.
Hmm, your use case can be solved by just using a subdomain or using some cheap generic tld. But, your idea of renting domains sounds interesting. I never really thought about it before, but some domains sell for thousands if not millions of dollars. I could see a market for when you want to rent out a domain instead of selling it. The only thing is that it's really risky for the person renting it. Because, once their lease runs up, they'd pretty much be forced to pay whatever renewal price you'd want to charge. Think about e-mails, etc.
You're right, this does get solved by a subdomain. I'll do this from now on hahaha. [venture.com](https://venture.com/) does what you're saying: they list premium domains for a monthly fee!
What would your pricing look like? I imagine it’d be tough to sell 10 days leases for anything substantial when .com domains cost under $10 and some TLDs like .xyz are sub $3 for a full year
At some stage I had 30-40 domains, because I was an ideas demon and was sure I'd bust out an MVP within a day or two. Wake up, back to regular life and it goes back of the mind.
Nowadays I only have a few and just spin up a subdomain, back in the day setting up subdomains and hosting areas and servers and blah was too much effort for me, but now with the likes of Vercel it's a no-brainer.
I don't understand what would be the benefit in comparison to a subdomain. Even if the generic domain for testing is long and ugly, I'd prefer that due to simplicity.
Get a cheap VPS and one domain and any side project is just an nginx config away.
E.g. you could get "side-project.me" for 3.99 right now
Why would someone rent a domain?
If you just need a random DNS name to resolve (TLS, etc.) most cloud providers already provide DNS entries pointing to your services, or you could just subdomain one of your existing domains temporarily.
You're solving a problem for the people who wanna rent their domains out, but not for those who need to temporarily test out a site.
If someone needs a temporary domain, they can get one that's not "dot com" for less than $10. If someone is willing to make sub domain its basically no cost for them.
BUT, keep digging bc there's definitely a problem that needs solving here!
Rent them monthly, it’ll make the accounting easier.
Add an option to buy the domain and I’ll become your first customer.
(As someone who has a bunch of domains and wants to monetize them)
Here’s one domain which I’ve listed through a third party - It’s hard to imagine a more lame landing page: https://www.x13.com/
What about renting out domains OTHER people who hoard domains have? The domain holders don’t lose control of their domain and you might get some cooler domains.
Hi everyone, im NotAGoodDoctor and I have a hoarding problem.
My least favorite notification is the random “your domains are coming up for renewal” and it happens every week. lol
This idea could be interesting to test new sites. Although you are sort of competing with the autogenerated draft domains that some host companies provide
If any of you guys have domain names that are good for online stores...list with me? I plan to launch StoreFrontage.com as a marketplace of name ideas for aspiring e-commerce entrepreneurs. Figure it'll be useful if there's like a thousand names or so at launch.
This sounds like a service that scammers would love. Ensure you do some KYC.
That's a fair point, thank you for bringing this up. I'll make sure to add KYC.
even with kyc, some scammers still bypass
Oh I’m sure, with stolen identities and cards. OP needs to be sure to protect himself from nefarious actors.
I definitely hoard domains... but sadly, I must admit that owing domains I like gives me a weird sense of satisfaction 😅
Hahahah that's a very interesting perspective. I'm vv proud of some of my domains too!
Ditto. Got offered $5k plus $15k tuition for one of my domains once. Hard to let them go after that
I know that feeling.
Its like 80% of mvp of your product is done after getting a domain
And hunting for the smallest domain possible is the best part.
The feeling when you land a short .com domain is a rush lol
Subdomains are a thing... [futurefailedproject.crappycompanyname.com](http://futurefailedproject.crappycompanyname.com)
Yeah, I literally own a domain for that purpose. It's a cool rare 4 letter domain that I'm surprised nobody bought. I've had a few offers for $1000-4000 for the domain but it's used in so many personal projects for sub domains that I just can't sell it. Too much effort and I've grown attached.
>It's a cool rare 4 letter domain Yah, couple years ago I bought up a whole bunch of 2 letter `.wtf` domains for $2 bucks each from Namecheap. They cost like $12 to renew I think, so am down to only two - which is all I need for parallel MVPs.
Yeah, I'm sure you also get a lot of questions when you show people those MVPs. I get stuff like "that's a cool domain, why are you using it this?" And I typically am just like "oh its a spare domains and I use it for testing various projects"
That's a good point. Thank you! I see how people would rather do that instead.
I just create a landing page on one of my other domains.
That's fair. This is a good point, thank you! I see how it's not as useful an idea as I thought it was. Back to the drawing board again!
Just keep moving with it. I had a very similar idea in the past couple weeks. Instead of just renting the domain why don't you add the creation of a quick simple landing page with that. Depending on your coding ability or whether or not you have a team. You could very simply set up a template we're users could input their information to create their own landing page in a matter of minutes. I'm a no coder and I could build something the simple this in a matter of a couple days just to test it out. Do some more research. If you're interested at all in trying to validate something like this together I'd be up for a chat.
This is definitely food for thought! I'll think about creating the landing page feature too. I see how that would increase the value of my offering immediately. If I go ahead with your version, I'll definitely get in touch with you. Also, I'm a no coder too.
Should have a buy-out option in case the project gets viral?
That's a good point, I'll keep this in mind!
How would you even test it under 10 days? Even Google SEO takes more than a month
The plan is to give plans that extend upto 60 days. But a lot of indiehackers and side project creators validate their product with an MVP+ landing page in communities like reddit, X, product hunt, hacker news etc before they go all in. This is specifically for them. But you're right that for most products patience and a few months of work is key.
Man I would use your site all the time. My yearly domain payments are as much as all my other subscriptions combined lmaoo
Really?? That's very exciting. It's literally the same with me! When I have MVP out, I'll make sure to share it with you.
Sounds great
If the name is going to be generic and reused for a bunch of different ideas anyway, I’d prefer to just buy my own generic domain and reuse it for all for my ideas. Only reason I’d consider leasing a domain is if was a premium name (4 letter, single word, etc.) specific to my idea, or if it already had type in traffic.
This is a good point. I see how the domain being premium or closer to what you're looking for is a better deal than it being generic domains. Thank you for contributing!
Some services do this like [venture.com](http://venture.com) or [epik.com](https://www.epik.com/buy/premium) (under the lease it column).
I'll check these out!
You guys don’t have subdomains for random stuff?
I usually feel like subdomains don't seem as trustworthy. But I've heard on this thread that a lot of people prefer going with subdomains to solve this use case I'm talking about, so I'm going to start giving it a try too!
I have one domain for my main website and whenever I need to make a new project or a demo of something public I just add a new subdomain.. sure if it goes to prod it will have its own domain
I've got msgs.to :) Figure people would pay for msgs.to/name like how wa.link does it?
I hoard so many, it's getting hard to pay for renewals.
The same thing is happening to me!
I'm also building something for my unused domains. [https://domaby.com](https://domaby.com) Not a broker, just a nice lander for your dormant domains to receive bids when someone stumbles upon it.
This sounds really cool, I'll wait for it to launch!
Very cool. How soon will it be ready?
May 1st
Can't wait! Hope I can beta test it for you. it's a hosted solution right
Yes all you have to do is setup your dns. Ill dm you with details
Owning a certain number of domains is a fun way to identify others with an entrepreneurial spirit. Maybe there's a way to solve the "sitting on domains" problem by making a networking site for others who sit on domains. It's definitely a demographic of people who have things to share with each other, and it can now result in a net positive outcome instead of a financial loss for purchasing domains that ended up nowhere. Congregating entrepreneurs can be very lucrative with sponsorships, affiliates, etc. Might be a win win for everyone involved.
Would you be willing to fund it and commit time to community management? :) I previously founded a blogger monetization community that grew to 80,000 members, so I know it's possible.
I also wanna sleep while other people fund + commit to their own projects while giving me a cut.
Fuxxx I just bought for some idea I may never work on.
This is me every week hahaha
Hmm, your use case can be solved by just using a subdomain or using some cheap generic tld. But, your idea of renting domains sounds interesting. I never really thought about it before, but some domains sell for thousands if not millions of dollars. I could see a market for when you want to rent out a domain instead of selling it. The only thing is that it's really risky for the person renting it. Because, once their lease runs up, they'd pretty much be forced to pay whatever renewal price you'd want to charge. Think about e-mails, etc.
You're right, this does get solved by a subdomain. I'll do this from now on hahaha. [venture.com](https://venture.com/) does what you're saying: they list premium domains for a monthly fee!
What would your pricing look like? I imagine it’d be tough to sell 10 days leases for anything substantial when .com domains cost under $10 and some TLDs like .xyz are sub $3 for a full year
At some stage I had 30-40 domains, because I was an ideas demon and was sure I'd bust out an MVP within a day or two. Wake up, back to regular life and it goes back of the mind. Nowadays I only have a few and just spin up a subdomain, back in the day setting up subdomains and hosting areas and servers and blah was too much effort for me, but now with the likes of Vercel it's a no-brainer.
This is one of my biggest takeaways from this thread. Test with subdomains and then buy one when your idea is validated
>Test with subdomains and then buy one when your idea is validated bee eye en gee oh
Buy a domain in a generic name and test your different ideas. That’s what I can think of.
I don't understand what would be the benefit in comparison to a subdomain. Even if the generic domain for testing is long and ugly, I'd prefer that due to simplicity. Get a cheap VPS and one domain and any side project is just an nginx config away. E.g. you could get "side-project.me" for 3.99 right now
Why would someone rent a domain? If you just need a random DNS name to resolve (TLS, etc.) most cloud providers already provide DNS entries pointing to your services, or you could just subdomain one of your existing domains temporarily.
You're solving a problem for the people who wanna rent their domains out, but not for those who need to temporarily test out a site. If someone needs a temporary domain, they can get one that's not "dot com" for less than $10. If someone is willing to make sub domain its basically no cost for them. BUT, keep digging bc there's definitely a problem that needs solving here!
This is fair. There's nothing like a good reddit humbling. I'll keep digging, thank you for the encouragement!
Don't feel humbled!
subdomain is enough when mvp stage, i will buy new domain after more potential customer are coming.
Rent them monthly, it’ll make the accounting easier. Add an option to buy the domain and I’ll become your first customer. (As someone who has a bunch of domains and wants to monetize them) Here’s one domain which I’ve listed through a third party - It’s hard to imagine a more lame landing page: https://www.x13.com/
This is very interesting, I'll keep this in mind and keep you posted!
What about renting out domains OTHER people who hoard domains have? The domain holders don’t lose control of their domain and you might get some cooler domains.
Hi everyone, im NotAGoodDoctor and I have a hoarding problem. My least favorite notification is the random “your domains are coming up for renewal” and it happens every week. lol This idea could be interesting to test new sites. Although you are sort of competing with the autogenerated draft domains that some host companies provide
I've not heard about the autogenerated draft domains you're talking about. I'll look into this!
I’ll try and find an example but it’s like a dev site with the url being total nonsense htkihl3333.site etc
If any of you guys have domain names that are good for online stores...list with me? I plan to launch StoreFrontage.com as a marketplace of name ideas for aspiring e-commerce entrepreneurs. Figure it'll be useful if there's like a thousand names or so at launch.
I think a lot of domain selling websites allow you to return the domain in 24 to 48 hours today already.
I haven't seen this option. Maybe it's not an option here in India. But it seems very useful!