Starting a Registar

[interactive]

I don't really know much about the subject and was just wondering. How hard would it be to start a registar? What is involved? What licensing? Not really thinking about starting one, just wondering. Thanks

[Adam]

Well im actualyl waiting for a reply from ICANN as to see what's required, but im thinking i might not be here for the response as i'll be away from Jan3-Jan17.

But once i get the info and if nobody else has told you so i'll let you know :)

I do believe the licensing is pretty high, if you dont wanna be a full on registrar you could be an eNom reseller although they no lnoger do their $6.95 reselle, but i have one heh :)

I'll reply to this when i have the info again, great post though, shame i couldnt be of any use :(

[interactive]

If you would could you forward it to me? Thanks

[Chicken]

Here's the basic info from ICANN: http://www.icann.org/registrars/accreditation.htm

David MacLaren of telaserv has looked into it quite extensively and might be able to give you some pointers if you're ever seriously considering it. We've talked about it quite a few times.

[interactive]

After reading a bit I'm a bit interested. May go out and try to get a few investors, after I finish my panel. Doesn't look like it could be more then $10k.

[Chicken]

The issue isn't money for the most part. Aside from all of the isues you have with running *any* business, it is all the backend programming that will kill you. When you log into enom or opensrs (for example), everything is there. Check domains, renew domains, processing, dns services, etc., etc., etc.

This is the real expense, not just getting funding for ICANN.

[interactive]

I agree with you. But as far as I'm concerned the programming is the fun part. I'm sure it wont be an easy task (not even sure if I'll do it).

[allan]

The other trick is how to make money and stay competitive. With registrars offering domains as low as $6.50 it is very hard to be competitive and make money. Of course, the real question is, how many sub $7 registrars will be around a year from now.

[interactive]

Very good point allan. I'll have to think it over and see how things go.

[allan]

Originally posted by interactive
Very good point allan. I'll have to think it over and see how things go.

Keep us updated, I am sure most people here would be excited about a new registrar :D.

[Chicken]

Once I had a wild hair somewhere to try to ralley the troops, and use the fact that there are more than one person on these forums, to form a new registrar. It certainly wouldn't be a small endeavor, by any means.

The competitiveness of the registrars is one thing to consider. As someone said, you can buy names for under $7, which is pretty good since you didn't have to start a registrar to get that price.

If someone wants to do it thgough, they've got quite a few brains to pick in these discussion forums, not to mention hands if needed. It has been done before. The mission has been accomplished. All that is needed is a team to duplicate and successfully complete the same journey. Sounds easy, but...

[interactive]

Originally posted by Chicken
Once I had a wild hair somewhere to try to ralley the troops, and use the fact that there are more than one person on these forums, to form a new registrar. It certainly wouldn't be a small endeavor, by any means.

The competitiveness of the registrars is one thing to consider. As someone said, you can buy names for under $7, which is pretty good since you didn't have to start a registrar to get that price.

If someone wants to do it thgough, they've got quite a few brains to pick in these discussion forums, not to mention hands if needed. It has been done before. The mission has been accomplished. All that is needed is a team to duplicate and successfully complete the same journey. Sounds easy, but...

Thanks, I'm sure it would be a large task. How many registers do you think are out there? Not resellers..

[allan]

Originally posted by interactive
Thanks, I'm sure it would be a large task. How many registers do you think are out there? Not resellers..

CNO registrars it looks like there is about 200 (I stopped counting at 109):

http://www.icann.org/registrars/accredited-list.html

[interactive]

http://www.icann.org/registrars/accreditation-financials.htm


US$70,000 in working capital requirement. THIS DOES NOT NEED TO BE PAID TO ICANN; ICANN requires only that you demonstrate (by submitting an independently verified financial statement) that you have at least this much liquid capital (cash or credit) before your ICANN accreditation becomes effective.



I guess I'll just stick with a **** registar. On paper I could come up with $70k, but I don't know if it's worth the hassel.

[allan]

Originally posted by interactive

I guess I'll just stick with a **** registar. On paper I could come up with $70k, but I don't know if it's worth the hassel.

Just get a super platinum Visa card :D, that should give you access to $70,000 in credit ;).

[interactive]

Originally posted by allan
Just get a super platinum Visa card :D, that should give you access to $70,000 in credit ;).

This is off topic sorry. But you know what's really sad, I'm under 18 and I get tons and tons of credit card offers. I do have some credit in my name, but not alot. I get like 1 a week from American Express, Visa, and Capital One. Course funny thing is they all say that they are to my former employeer. Who I think sold my address

[maxhest]

Looks hard.. Not up for doing that.. I would help if anyone needed it though :)

[Chicken]

Originally posted by interactive
This is off topic sorry. But you know what's really sad, I'm under 18 and I get tons and tons of credit card offers...
OT continued... Tear those letters up. If you have very little income (and in college that's what I'd expect), then you can't possibly pay off a large balance at those rates. Trust me, I didn't listen to the advice I'm giving and couldn't pay the 30K I owed at the time. I signed up for many of those offers and had 75K in credit, which is more credit than anyone with a part-time 10hr/wk. job should have. Was pretty ugly.

[interactive]

Originally posted by Chicken
OT continued... Tear those letters up. If you have very little income (and in college that's what I'd expect), then you can't possibly pay off a large balance at those rates. Trust me, I didn't listen to the advice I'm giving and couldn't pay the 30K I owed at the time. I signed up for many of those offers and had 75K in credit, which is more credit than anyone with a part-time 10hr/wk. job should have. Was pretty ugly.

Thanks for the advice. I refuse to ever you plastic (well excluding my Visa Debt card). Thanks again

[allan]

Originally posted by interactive
Thanks for the advice. I refuse to ever you plastic (well excluding my Visa Debt card). Thanks again

We keep one credit card around for emergencies (like when our AC went this summer and we didn't have the $2500 on hand to buy a new one out right). But we keep it locked in a firebox under our bed, so there is no temptation to use it frivoulously.

[Chicken]

It is good to use one with a small limit now and then, pay off the balance each month, or buy something larger with a plan to pay off the balance in x months -but do pay it off according to your scheduled plan. When we went to buy the house (announcement coming soon, don't want to jinx anything just yet, heh), one thing they said was that since I have cut up all the cards (many years ago), there was a lack of current credit history (which was a bad thing). I didn't have enough lines of credit open. Figures...

[alchiba]

Originally posted by interactive
I'm under 18 and I get tons and tons of credit card offers.

My 13-year-old gets about one of these a month. God only knows what else comes in the mail I haven't seen yet. :rolleyes:

Chicken, a lack of credit history can be worse that bad credit history. Last year some colleagues from Europe came over on extended work visas. I helped them rent houses, buy cars -- the kinds of things that are for the most part commonplace. What a nightmare. They had plenty of credit history but it was. . . over there. Here, it's as if they never existed. We got it all done but I couldn't help feeling like I was caught up in an episode of The Twilight Zone.

[Chicken]

My wife (from Korea) has the same problem. Couldn't get one of those cheesey dept. store credit cards even. She also is treated as a 15 year old at the DMV and for insurance (my insurance was extremely inexpensive until I added her, whoooo!).

Sorry, all of this has very littel do do with topic: Starting a Registar

[jolly]

It's really good idea of starting registrar but competition :(

It's good to become channel partner then Registrar.

:banana: :banana: :banana: :banana:

[interactive]

Originally posted by jolly
It's really good idea of starting registrar but competition :(

It's good to become channel partner then Registrar.

:banana: :banana: :banana: :banana:

But then you have to follow their rules whats the fun in that ;).

[felix220]

Originally posted by interactive
After reading a bit I'm a bit interested. May go out and try to get a few investors, after I finish my panel. Doesn't look like it could be more then $10k.

It's actually a lot more than $10K :) there are security and sales bonds that must be placed with Verisign, ICANN, Afilias, Neustar and other registries.. there are many other fees and costs involved and the $10k would be unlikely to even cover your lawyers fees for the exercise.. hundreds of thousands of dollars is more like it.. :yikes:

It's almost no longer worth considering from a commercial point of view, although there are certainly some benefits in other scenarios.. what with all the ICANN/Verisign issues at hand.. it may be a completely worthless badge unless you are a well established registrar already.. pay $7k to eNom and get yourself a $6.95 account.. get a reasonable programmer to use the API to create a decent site and then market your ass off.. you have more chance of making some money that way than becoming an accredited registrar.

[LegendHost]

Registrar is a very good idea but here is the problem!. Dotster, Inc. started registration and was very successfull and here is why. They started a service known as namewinner which gets expired domain and because of that the service is unique. Domain Registration is a great business but there is a very big problem coming up soon which you MUST know about. Verisign is doing what microsoft has done. Monopolizing the industry of its own. Verisign's new service known as WLS is supposed to be active from July 25th. There will be much more competition of domain registration but ultimately VeriSign will be the KING. If you need links or anything to the verisign's policy and upcoming plans do let me know. I myself had great plans all sorted and was about to file a DBA for domain registration but i stopped due to the simple fact that soon domain market will be monopolized. For now just doing simple reselling which is good enough for the time being.

[zoltan]

I think that anyone is trying to become a new registrar, should copy and IMPROVE the services offered by some of the big players around: enom or godaddy.
enom's idea is brilliant. If you really want to succeed, you need to focus to wholesale market not to end user market. No huge marketing / advertising expenses. I tried this model starting from November on another type of business (not domain registrations) and I have to admit that the current results are pretty good. :)