Today we got some insights from Todd Han the founder of Dynadot. Todd shares what it’s like to run a registrar, the Dynadot Aftermarket and what’s coming in the future for Dynadot.
1) You have been very popular at Namepros the last few years winning the best/favorite registrar poll. How much does that mean to you as a company?
Todd) I think I can speak for the entire company when I say that we are extremely grateful for the support of the domain investor community. Running a registrar is a lot of hard work, and it is very nice to be appreciated.
2) What do you see as the greatest challenges to running a domain registrar?
Todd) There is not much of a barrier to entry to becoming a domain registrar. Over the 20 years I have been in this business, I have seen a lot of registrars come and go. The real challenge in running a domain registrar is being extremely efficient. Customer expect both low prices and excellent service. Dynadot excels in software and automation, so we are pretty efficient.
There are very low margins, so there is not much room for error. I have seen several registrars over the years just run out of money in their bank accounts. Dynadot has no investors or debt, so we are rock solid financially.
3) You are one of the few registrars releasing a monthly aftermarket sales report, (THANK YOU) How do you see the Dynadot aftermarket growing?
Todd) We are now at almost 5 million domains under management. Naturally not all of these domains renew, so we have seen a lot of growth in our expired auctions. There are still deals though because not everyone knows about our auctions yet. I encourage your readers to check them out.
In general the domain name aftermarket shows steady growth year after year. Despite all the hype about social media, phone apps, and QR codes, the best addresses on the internet are still domain names.
4) Domain investors have increasingly become more concerned with the security of their domain names at the registrar where they are held. What is Dynadot doing to make sure their systems are secure?
Todd) At the systems level, we have a full time security team working on the security of our servers. They run scans and probes of our system every week to detect vulnerabilities.
At the account level, we offer two factor authentication with both SMS and authenticator app. And we are about to launch security keys (Yubikey). Our phone app offers biometric authentication (Face ID).
5) What advice do you give to those brand new to domaining?
Todd) I am not a domain investor myself, but I have met many over the years. The early investors had the foresight to scoop up great domains before the general public realized their potential. I admire these investors because I was also around at that time, but I didn’t have the vision to buy so early.
The later investors are much more data driven, and follow a system with lots of automation. They use our API a lot. Our API is probably the best in the industry. We have some customers that manage 100k domains strictly through the API.
6) Do you own a private domain portfolio for yourself? If so what do you consider your best domain names?
Todd) I don’t own a domain portfolio. I own about 10 domain names, including toddhan.com. Dynadot as a company also does not own a domain portfolio. Every domain that is not renewed is sent to our expired auctions. Nothing is held back.
7) What does the future of Dynadot look like?
We are building an exciting new tool especially for domain investors. I can’t talk too much about it yet, but I suspect our customers will be very happy when it releases.
In general, Dynadot will continue to invest in our company and our employees, so that we can offer the best service to our customers.
Thank you for your time Todd
Thank you Raymond
Thanks for this. Our industry is lucky to have Todd. Just running an incredible domain registrar without any of the drama you find at many of the others.