
Show HN: NameTerrific - Domain names for geeks - zhoutong
https://www.nameterrific.com
======
nlh
This looks very cool Ryan - congrats on the launch! It's instantly appealing
to me, and I fully understand the motivation. NameCheap, while an awesome
domain name provider, still feels a bit "hackey" in their UI. It works, but it
feels odd. This appeals to me more -- like Stripe for domain names.

I'm going to be perfectly honest with you: The fact that you list that you're
a one-man operation, that you're 18 years old, and that you say you "achieved
financial independence at the age of 16" is a big turn-off to me.

I know it shouldn't be. I don't want it to be. I'm sure you've built an
awesome product/service. But I also know what I was like when I was 18, and I
know how much I thought I knew and how I appeared to others.

But I can't lie -- this would prevent me from using the service at the moment.
My domain names are very important -- and it raises too many questions. Did
you master the security side of things? Have you considered all potential
points of failure? Have you vetted this with folks with more experience in the
industry? Etc.

I'm not trying to rain on the parade or put down this accomplishment. I think
it is -awesome- that you've built and launched a product that looks (and
probably is) this good. But I think you might want to reconsider how you
present your background.

Which of course leads to a whole new set of questions -- should you just leave
out your age entirely? I'm not sure. (Is it really relevant or is this just me
being knee-jerk?)

Either way, best of luck and congrats on the launch.

~~~
zhoutong
I completely understand your point. Age is not something I can manipulate with
so I don't mind facing the truth.

It's okay if you're not using NameTerrific today. I'm sure you wouldn't trust
your important domains with any random startups that you've never heard of
before (and you shouldn't). But let me answer your questions:

\- Security. I've invested a lot of time in security. Basically the whole
system is running in a private network and the only public-facing node is the
load balancer. The DNS servers are running in a separate network and connect
with TerrificDNS controller with a secure connection. eNom API requires IP
address verification. Credit cards are stored completely outside the web
service. I've paid attention to common attacks (injection, CSRF, XSS and mass
assignment).

\- Points of failure. DNS is a difficult thing to handle because the uptime is
critical. That's why TerrificDNS Anycast uses Amazon Route 53. If you're
uncomfortable with NameTerrific's DNS servers, you can choose this outsourced
solution. 100% SLA.

\- My background: It seems true that my age is more of a perceived-technical
disadvantage rather than a marketing advantage, especially when considering
the seriousness of my project(s). However, I've been coding for 6 years (with
4 years web) so I think it shouldn't be a serious limiting factor.

Thank you for your compliments! I'll prove myself with time and results.

------
ohashi
As a domainer and a geek here are my thoughts:

Price: too high. I am paying $8.49 per .com right now with Fabulous. NameCheap
is 10.69 with no coupon. Asking for 12 is too high if I am renewing a lot of
domains.

API: A lot of registrars have API access. I am not sure what is special about
yours. I've worked with Fabulous, eNom, DirectI, and a couple others. Some are
better than others, but what makes you special? In fact, you seem to be built
on top of eNom's API.

DNS: This is perhaps the only real selling point I see. You're essentially
upselling on better DNS and foregoing all the other potential upsells (like
hosting). How do you compete against the professional DNS companies? It only
takes a NS change for me to be using their services. You're using Route53, why
wouldn't I do this myself?

Maybe I am not your target audience, but I am struggling to figure out who is.
I understand the economics of registrars and I feel like you've cut yourself
too small a slice to be sustainable. I have doubts about the funding because
you don't own a registrar which reduces costs long term but requires quite a
bit of capital. But also creates higher pricing requirements which means less
customers. You've given up all but one upsell possibility, which has a lot of
competition that geeks are generally familiar with. Your audience is supposed
to be savvy, so if they are developing a system that requires a lot of domains
they can figure out how/where to get them cheaper and setup DNS too most
likely.

I like seeing innovation in the domain space, but I fear for the economic
viability of this. I also don't honestly see any innovation here. You've
complained about what people don't like, but a lot of companies are already
going after you main complaints.

I think the registrar innovation is pretty dead because of the shitty
economics of it. The margins are getting eaten up by VeriSign every year. They
make more money doing everything but registrations. Maybe your DNS upsell will
work, maybe not. Good luck.

~~~
zhoutong
Your argument is definitely valid and I agree with you that the economic
viability is limited in the sense that NameTerrific is not an extraordinarily
competitive product in the market.

However there are many small but extremely useful features in NameTerrific
that are not available elsewhere, such as DNS Snippets, Profiles and Domain
Admins. They simplify the domain management for web designers/developers.

I don't want NameTerrific to be the cheapest registrar, the most professional
DNS service provider or a losing department of a hosting company. The vision I
see is an all-in-one platform that covers every aspect of professional domain
management. You get the best uptime and easiest management automatically, and
you can customize the experience the way you want.

The reason that the APIs haven't been released today is because I'm adding
OAuth to it. NameTerrific is designed to completely open up the domain
industry to all developers.

Unfortunately domainers are never my target audience. Many professional
domainers get accreditation themselves to take advantage of cheap prices and
stuff like domain cancellation. There's no point competing in such a low
margin field.

But well, I believe that there will be people (hopefully a lot of them) who
want something simple and straightforward and are willing to spend $2-$3 extra
a year to get a professional product without doing much work.

~~~
ohashi
I am glad you recognize that. I worry tremendously about companies that don't
realize the economics of registrars. Very few domainers actually own
registrars, the biggest guys do, but most aren't technically inclined and work
with existing registrars (eg. Fabulous, Enom, Moniker). Even at $2-3 margins
you're going to need tens of thousands of domains to cover costs. You want the
best support, but are a 1 man operation, to hire a 24/7 team, you would need 3
people working full shifts (if that includes you), we're talking at least
50,000-70,000 domains (not even sure what costs you have, so that would be on
top). That's a lot of domains. I hope the DNS is really popular and has great
margins, because you're going to need them.

As far as features, you have not looked around enough apparently. Profiles and
domain admins are something that have been around for MANY years. I think even
your registrar, eNom, has that functionality with subaccounts and access
levels. I know my registrar, Fabulous, has them. I even have DNS templates
(seemingly equivalent to your snippets). I have had this stuff for the past ~5
years?

------
zhoutong
Hi HN,

I have been working on NameTerrific for almost 8 months. Now it's time to
launch. If you are interested in some background information about
NameTerrific, please read my blog post about this launch:
<http://blog.nameterrific.com/2012/11/the-fix/>

Otherwise please leave your comments here or email me at
ryan@nameterrific.com。

Your feedback is greatly appreciated!

~~~
marquis
Can you explain how this is different from using any other domain registration
service? It's not clear what the problem is, aside from not being GoDaddy et
al, and how you are fixing it, as there are a number of reputable registrars
available. Having said that, congrats on the launch.

~~~
zhoutong
In my blog post (<http://blog.nameterrific.com/2012/11/the-fix/>) I have
listed a few problems.

Basically the domain name industry wasn't being actively developed in the last
few years. A lot of effort was spent on the business side, especially how to
use domains to boost parking, hosting and SEO services revenue. I think geeks
deserve a professional platform that only deals with domain names.

It's a billion industry, and it's a shame that there're few startups focusing
on this business. NameTerrific was meant to fill this gap.

------
h2s
You've got so many things right with this, I'm really impressed. Supporting
login via Github and accepting Bitcoin payments makes the "for Geeks" tagline
come across as honest. Similarly, being really upfront about the hosting
referral links and providing non-referral links contributes to the sense that
"this is an honest guy".

The whole things looks slick as fuck too. Hosting the privacy policy with a
third-party who summarises it is a great idea. In general I feel like I've
learned a lot about how to launch a product just by looking at this site.
Thanks!

In return, I'd like to offer just one opinion about what I think could be
improved. The front page content below the fold, starting with "We created
TerrificDNS" and ending with "Take some action today" feels a bit cluttered
and tl;dr compared to the rest. I started to skim at that point. Seriously
though, I loved this.

------
yllus
Here are my thoughts as a one-time employee of a web hosting company; I built
their DNS control panel for customers and their overall order placement and
customer management API.

I think that the API access you offer is truly a great innovation in this
space. I don't currently have a use case for it; have you thought of any that
you could share? Programmatic creation of subdomains?

My criticism is that you need to properly answer the question of, "You're a
startup; how do I know that you'll be here five years from now and my domains
won't end up in purgatory somewhere because you go out of business?" Part of
that echoes what nlh says below: It is not a good thing that you are
advertising that you are 18. Rightfully or wrongfully, that works against you.

~~~
zhoutong
Yes, programmatic creation of subdomains is one. Another potential use case is
domain-based apps. NameTerrific will roll out OAuth support in the coming
weeks so developers can control their users' domains through NameTerrific. So
you can help a blogger point their domain to a blogging platform
programmatically, for example.

Also, you can create a health check program that automatically drops
unresponsive nodes from a round-robin DNS-based load balancing record set.

To address your concern: eNom handles all registrations currently. If
NameTerrific doesn't respond you someday (I'll make sure it doesn't happen),
you can claim back your domain at eNom and then you can transfer to anywhere
else. The domains are yours and never ours.

Regarding the age: I recognize that being a problem now. But there's no
regret. I've done what I need to and I'll prove myself with time and results.

------
mgkimsal
Looks interesting. A little pricey for my needs right now, but I understand
the programmatic access to things is useful at the very least. If/when I
switch or have a programmatic need, I'll look at this more closely.

I don't see any discounts for bulk domains (I've got ~150 I manage).

Also, I use virtualmin - having a plugin for virtualmin to allow registrations
and management through nameterrific might be useful for you to look at
(although you've probably already got 1000 ideas on your plate).

~~~
zhoutong
I can see a huge potential in the consulting market. Many web
developers/designers manage a large number of domains for their clients and
they obviously want to maximize the productivity for domain-related tasks.

In the near future, we will launch our APIs as well as a white-label platform
for these needs.

Your virtualmin idea is great. Yes, with APIs everything can be integrated and
centrally managed.

EDIT: We're definitely interested in offering bulk discounts, email your needs
to support@nameterrific.com and let's see how we can work together.

------
crisnoble
I think offering Bitcoin (฿) payment is a fantastic, er terrific, idea.
Pricing (<https://www.nameterrific.com/pricing>) on a whole is very
reasonable, but it seems that the .co domains are a bit pricey compared to
other alternatives.

------
codegeek
Looks good. However, I wanted to point out something. Your tagline says
"Domain names for geeks" but in your FAQs, you say "It is not only for geeks
but for everyone". If a non-geek visits your landing page, they might not like
the tagline. You might want to think about re-wording the tagline ?

~~~
zhoutong
Well, I've tried a few different taglines but this one feels the best to me.
Of course I'll improve it when I have better ideas. Thanks for the feedback!

------
moofish
FWIW, DNSimple (<http://dnsimple.com>) have been doing this for years, with a
cleaner API and roughly the same pricing

~~~
zhoutong
DNSimple is really great. I like how they handle the web services.
NameTerrific has taken a more flexible approach - we allow customers to create
their own Snippets and get TSI (pretty much like AMI). So if you have a
Tumblr-like platform, it will make sense to give your customers a TSI to
subscribe to (and when you change your IP addresses, all of their records get
updated).

Also, NameTerrific offers Anycast DNS, which is important to many users. The
Unicast DNS is based on PowerDNS, the same as DNSimple, but the backend is
Redis instead of MySQL - way faster.

------
digitalsushi
I might actually move a personal domain to this to try it out if I could
ascertain whether ipv6 glue records are available.

~~~
zhoutong
Unfortunately, eNom only offers IPv4 glue records (we call it "Registry
Records"). That's why we plan to be a registrar ourselves so that we can offer
the geekiest thing possible.

------
tobiasbischoff
Nearly signed up, then i saw the "secured by Norton" Badge in the footer if
the page.

------
kang
Nameterrific is not a good name.

~~~
MrUnknown
Care to explain why? For simply a domain registering company, it seems fine.

