Kevin Ham once dubbed “The man who owns the Internet” in a 2007 Business 2.0 article was told he was stifling innovation by one of the people who invented the Internet.
Ham writes in a blog post on Venture.com that he was excited to meet Sir Tim Berners-Lee in Vancouver at a TED conference.
Filled with enthusiasm Berners-Lee floored him with the following line, By holding these great domain names, you are stifling innovation!”
The gut punch delivered on that Vancouver night is what inspired Ham to create Venture.com
He writes:
Right then, I had a vision of how to help the owners of great domain names build a community for the long term. What if we built a platform that made great domain names available to great teams with great ideas? That would enhance innovation rather than stifle it. It just felt right in my heart.
Interesting post, Ham has done and seen more than most in domaining. Read the full post here.
Maybe I’m missing something, but why would any company consider leasing from venture.com when the “General Terms of Service for Domain Name Lessees” includes…
“10.3 a. Termination by Venture: For Convenience: Venture may terminate these Terms for Venture’s sole convenience effective on seven (7) days’ notice of termination to Lessee.”
Yeah I read that, I could not recommend that to a client, maybe there is further clarification one would get when signing up. But that does not read well for leasing a domain name.
Bad TOS.He is going to need to explain that .
Wont recommemd anyone based on that.
I really surprised that he would have expected a positive response to that. Domainers aren’t popular much like bankers, lawyers, plastic surgeons, VC’s and silicon valley startup types aren’t popular. It is mostly about “making money”. Let’s be real here, this is not charity work. He will probably be in for another round of disappointment the next time he speaks to Sir Tim.
Agreed, the circles that Sir Tim runs in, you know they loathe domainers from a myriad of perspectives. Some might even be jealousy but many are based on ideology.
I love these.Will give it a try with some of my better domains.
Ahhh…finally I know who invented Venture.com…great website however one major flaw I see in it is requiring your renters to place a footer on their website. That defeats the whole purpose of renting a premium domain name.
The footer is only required on the “start up plan”. If you pay more for the pro plan it does not have the footer. Seems reasonable to me.
If you rent a million dollar name to a struggling startup for 100$ a month for first few months and they lose it due to udrp trademark issues, they are on the hook for 250X of the regular rate. How are they gonna pay that? Would you as n domain owner take such risk? I wouldn’t.
Very compelling read.
Of course Kevin Ham wouldn’t receive any credit for what he accomplished in the domain world by someone from the outside who doesn’t understand it.
It takes a lot of hard work to put together a valuable and compelling portfolio of domain names.
Relying on someone’s external validation – even someone you admire and who you would think should appreciate your work – is a recipe for disappointment.
Be proud of your achievements and let the results speak for themselves.
What I learned in domain leasing has been with Rick Schwartz, 7 years ago from this interview https://www.domainsherpa.com/rick-schwartz-jointventures-interview/
Sir. Tim, I didn’t know him, although at this point if someone of you can answer who can pay $22000 a Startup every month for Chorus.com, this same domain can be found by a similar variant at https://www.brandbucket.com/search?q=chorus.com