Hello!

alan said:
Thanks for your feedback, @astutiumRob !

We hope to introduce those types of helpful search filters soon (registration date, length, TLD, dictionary word, exclude numbers and hyphens, etc.). The search is reading from a database right now which doesn't help its performance and it feels a bit jumpy. I hope to move it over to Elasticsearch soon, and then we can really start to expand on it. Debating whether to move to a streaming API also. I hope to use generative AI to categorise and eventually score expiring domains so you can quickly find the best ones. Much to do! 🥳

I've passed on the feedback about using links vs javascript too. 🙂
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The categorisation of expiring domains into specific niche categories such as e.g. "travel", "education", etc based upon perhaps a weighting of the percentage of backlinks on the domain from entities within said category would be great. e.g. bobstravel.co.uk domain is expiring and there are 61% of backlinks to it from tui.co.uk, expedia.co.uk, etc so bobstravel.co.uk would be classed as a "travel" category domain with a high level of certainty.

Categorisation of domains based on domain string only seems to be a bit limited in many cases. Not sure how feasible my idea would be though.
 
keano said:
The categorisation of expiring domains into specific niche categories such as e.g. "travel", "education", etc based upon perhaps a weighting of the percentage of backlinks on the domain from entities within said category would be great. e.g. bobstravel.co.uk domain is expiring and there are 61% of backlinks to it from tui.co.uk, expedia.co.uk, etc so bobstravel.co.uk would be classed as a "travel" category domain with a high level of certainty.

Categorisation of domains based on domain string only seems to be a bit limited in many cases. Not sure how feasible my idea would be though.
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That's very interesting! Thinking out loud, I think categorising based on the domain itself would need to be the first pass (however limited it might be), and then I'll need to see what SEO data (and cost 😫) I can source from third-parties.

Thank you sincerely for the feedback! This community has been incredibly helpful and positive about the project. 😊
 
real said:
I wish you every success with your project, but being honest the business model will never work.

If you are going to charge £39 plus VAT for a successful catch and with a couple of tags you will catch approx. 1 or 2 valuable domains per year at best (this is trying to be positive). You are then going to sell them for £39?

You are obviously smart and have exciting potential, start the next Stripe, Wise or Facebook and do not waste your time on a business model that is circa 5-10 years too late.

I write these words with the best intentions, but please correct me if I am wrong.

I just hate to see good potential go to waste. Place your tags in a pool and move on to better things with real potential.
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Sounds like you don't have a clue what you're talking about. You're thinking inside the box, that's the issue. Lateral thinking is what you need. £39 + VAT is actually reasonable for a catch, and if they are competitive, which perhaps they are, they are going to be catching frequently. In the event they aren't competitive, you aren't factoring in end-users who use dropcatching services to secure names that aren't competitive.

I agree, that it is a difficult market to break into. Especially if you're not competitive enough to compete with the two dominating pools. But I think you're being a bit harsh by saying good potential is going to waste. Nobody is going to start the next Stripe, Wise or Facebook, because those platforms are multi-billion pound successful conglomerates, and I don't know if you've noticed, but they're doing(1) pretty(2) well(3).
 
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Truthfully, we both know Amazon was a unicorn. It filled a huge gap that hadn't been thought about before. Nowadays, it's so much harder to even find a gap in any market, that it's so difficult to imagine something else in place of Meta, Amazon, Stripe etc. and they all have current competitors which are still successful, making it even more difficult. To build the next Meta, you have to build the next Snapchat, X, Reddit as well, for example.
 
ben said:
Sounds like you don't have a clue what you're talking about...
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I can vouch for @real having a clue what he's talking about.

And when he says "start the next Stripe, Wise or Facebook", I very much doubt he meant literally start another Facebook. More likely he meant, start work on the next big idea.

There are also always gaps in markets, always new markets to explore.
 
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real said:
If you are going to charge £39 plus VAT for a successful catch and with a couple of tags you will catch approx. 1 or 2 valuable domains per year at best (this is trying to be positive). You are then going to sell them for £39?

You are obviously smart and have exciting potential, start the next Stripe, Wise or Facebook and do not waste your time on a business model that is circa 5-10 years too late.
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I agree.

It's too crowded and this service is not bringing anything new, being 10+ years late to the party.

You could indeed build something much more interesting.
 
Thank you all for your thoughts! It's very valuable feedback!

I really do appreciate your perspectives, and I understand that the UK domain aftermarket has worked as it has for quite some time. The competition is obviously fierce for valuable domain names.

I've already learned quite a lot since starting this project, and I will continue to learn and grow as it evolves.

I needed to build the drop-catching feature as one cog of a larger machine, and I expect to improve it over time. I do agree the party has started without me 😅, but I don't believe the party is over yet. I think there is a still lot of innovation to be done here, especially with the advent of new technologies, business models, and regulations.

On the suggestion that I could find something more interesting, well this is interesting for me right now. You've all been in this world for some time to the point that its overly familiar to you. I'll learn and grow with it, and it eventually might not interest me too much either.

I do value the feedback, and I really appreciate we can have this type of discussion!

Additionally, this community has been very positive and helpful, and thank you everyone for giving me enough competitive backorders to help me test and tweak my system. 🙂
 
real said:
This is my last post in the forum, I am going back to full forum retirement.
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You picked the wrong person to seek sympathy from, I don't have a clue who you are. If you're this offended by someone disagreeing with you, perhaps that's a good decision.
 
ben said:
You picked the wrong person to seek sympathy from, I don't have a clue who you are. If you're this offended by someone disagreeing with you, perhaps that's a good decision.
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@ben - It seems you've never been introduced to the following saying:

"If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing."

Life would be so much nicer if there were less people trying to:
  • Be "edgy" or "funny".
  • Decorate online behaviour as "banter".
  • Attempt to be some kind of "alpha".
Also, being autistic isn't a 'get out of jail free card' for being rude.

Do better. Always be respectful.
 
In the other place someone would post a popcorn gif right about now.

Hopefully nothing escalates much further because the comments and feedback seem to be genuine both positive and negative and not trolling like at the other place.

Many or most people here will think the timing of Market entry for this venture is unusual though because many public facing catchers have left the industry in the past couple of years but the majority of the same tags are still catching so the competitiveness is even higher.
 
seemly said:
@ben - It seems you've never been introduced to the following saying:

"If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing."

Life would be so much nicer if there were less people trying to:
  • Be "edgy" or "funny".
  • Decorate online behaviour as "banter".
  • Attempt to be some kind of "alpha".
Also, being autistic isn't a 'get out of jail free card' for being rude.

Do better. Always be respectful.
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I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful, and I did hesitate to post the comment, but decided to post it in the end, as I feel that my views are also valid.
 
I just wanted to thank everyone again for their feedback and support for the project. We'll continue to evolve and I'm excited to see where it takes us.

I've already got the most popular introduction thread on 4m, so I better give others a chance to shine. 😅

I'll publish further updates on our new blog going forward. I'm always happy to help however I can and answer any questions anytime, anywhere—just reach out!
 
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alan said:
Hi everyone!

I'm Alan. I'm relatively new to the world of domaining, only really taking an active interest over the past year. I have bought and sold a couple of premium domain names in my time for my own projects, but nothing to write home about.

I've been a software developer for the past ~15 years, and I've tried my hand at building a public-facing UK drop catcher (Domain Parachute) as a platform to hone my developer skills, play around with new tech, and to learn more about the domain industry and community in general.

I've been mostly a lurker here and in the other place, but I hope to learn and contribute more as this forum develops. 🙂
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Hi Alan, welcome good luck on your domaining journey.
 
I just wondered after a couple of months how the project/website is progressing.

You say and I quote from the homepage:

"Precision Catches"

"Superior Outcomes"

Are you delivering on these claims? Any notable catches to date?

Genuinely interested to see if anyone can break into the UK catching market and have success.
 
Thanks for pulling me away from the code and into the limelight, @real!

We’re still hard at work on the project, making improvements and tuning performance - all good things take time.

As for Precision Catches and Superior Outcomes, I'll admit they’re aspirational, a bit of marketing vision that sets the standard we’re aiming for. Our intent is to emphasise our continuous focus on performance. Determining whether our outcomes are genuinely "superior" will take time, but the journey has been promising so far.

We don’t share customer catches, but you’re welcome to see some of the domains we've caught as part of our testing at https://parachute.domains.

I’m planning to post a thread here soon to share the latest updates and improvements we've been working on. Sorry for keeping everyone in the dark - I need to get better at sharing our story as we go!
 
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