I’m thinking, kill 2 birds with one stone.
Change “Open to Premium Domains” to “Budget for Premium Domains” and give them a box to fill in an amount (which the default is $0).
And allow us to submit internal/external names.
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It would be good for creatives, but on the other hand there is SH, trying to promote Marketplace, and I think it would not be a good move for them. Keep “Premium domains” label just for SH marketplace and add completely different option for external sources, with thorough explanation what that means. I know it complicates things a bit, but a lot of us had a situation that CH comments “I love your name, but it is a bit expensive” in a contest with “Premium = YES” and marketplace price under $1000
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The brief has been updated. Thank you.
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Thanks @Grant. I have follow up questions. When the CH’s budget is high- you’ve been requesting domainers to pitch domains to you outside of SH. Yesterday I pitched to you one such domain via that forum.
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Since you’re externally looking for domains in some cases outside of SH, why can a domain be pitched outside of SH without limitations while pitching it inside of SH has limitations? In the case of the domain I pitched yesterday- to my understanding I’m not even allowed to submit it to the contest since it’s a domain that I’m brokering.
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You mentioned that domains have to be pitched to SH’s marketplace first and only if they’re rejected, they can be pitched to contests that accept outside submissions. That’s problematic since domains that are already listed at exclusive marketplaces may have been there before the SH marketplace existed and it also takes a 30 day notice to remove them, which won’t be relevant to the contest at that point. Why is that requirement neccesary?
On the one hand, you guys allow outside domains and even go to other forums to request them. On the other hand, you add rules that are making it hard to submit domains from within SH so it’s harder for creatives to suggest domains than it is for a random domainer on another forum. I think the matter needs more thought and hopefully you guys will give more leeway with submissions in these contests.
p.s. On a side note- I’d appreciate a private response regarding the domain I pitched, just so I’ll know if it’s being considered or not since I can’t enter it into the contest.
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Thank you for your message. Let me clarify a few points.
Our policy is that premium names cannot be submitted to a contest unless they are in our Marketplace. However, in a select few cases, Squadhelp allows contests to be run where outside domains are accepted when they are listed on a reputable site with a clear selling price. Still, in a limited number of select cases, when a domain budget is very high and the contest holder is looking for single-English words or other such domains, we may help Contest Holders source these domains.
In these cases, we follow the same standards. We do not share domains with the Contest Holder unless we have done our due diligence in determining that the domain is a great fit for the project, confirming that they are being offered from the genuine owner, and finding a selling price.
Even if a CH ends up buying a name from a third party seller, a contest winner is still selected as per our policies of Guaranteed Contests.
With regard to your specific domain, we’ve already provided details regarding our feedback process via a private message.
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@grant Thanks for the reply. I’m glad that you explained the matter of sourced domains because that hasn’t been addressed so far. Still not convinced that in those special contests- allowing anyone to suggest any domain outside of SH while preventing members from doing it within SH is the best call- but I guess as long as there’s a way to do it at SH or outside SH, then it’s not that bad.
Either way, I think it would be helpful if you could open a direct channel of communication with you at SH in order to pitch domains for these special contests privately instead of having to do it on a different platform (or via the forum).
As for the domain I’m brokering- thanks. It seems to me like the perfect fit so I hope the CH will agree. Please be in touch if he’s interested. Have a great one & thanks again!
Deleted. Violated forum rules apparently. Sorry.
What is the domain forum?
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Squadhelp didn’t like my last post so I’m deleting it. @Grant- as I said, it would be good to have a direct channel of communication with you that isn’t done via third party sites. Thx.
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Just wanted to add that I shouldn’t have written to @Grant a private message on this thread and I understand why SH thought it was problematic. It’s just strange having to try and contact him via messages on a third party site for a SH related contest.
Since there are restrictions on the type of suggestions that can be made via a contest and Squadhelp is actively looking for suggestions in other places in some cases, suggestions that aren’t restricted by the rules applied to contests- perhaps Grant could offer creatives the same opportunity to pitch names that can’t be entered into contests right here at SH. Otherwise, people that see his message on a third party site can suggest anything while SH creatives, who probably don’t even know where he’s posting, are limited with what they can suggest.
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@Moretal, as stated previously. the same rules apply universally for contest participation.
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As a creative, if your domain is listed in SH marketplace, you can submit them directly in contests .
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If you do not own the domains, you are allowed to submit them in contests which are open to premium domains and where it is explicitly mentioned that third party domains are allowed with _SC suffix. In those cases, the names must be listed for sale on a reputable site, with a clear selling price.
In both these cases, there is no reason to pitch them in third party forums, because you have direct access to submit them to the SH contests. As stated previously, in some rare cases, we help the CH source extremely high-end, premium domains from external/ third party sources if the CH has a high domain budget and is looking for single-english words or other such domains which are not currently available in our platform. In those cases, we first conduct the due diligence to make sure that the person who is pitching those domains actually owns them or represents the seller. If the domains are a good fit, and we have confirmed ownership, the seller is invited to submit it to the relevant contest (either as a SH marketplace domain, or with _SC method)
Therefore, at the end of the day, everyone must go through the same rules for contest submission (regardless of the fact that they are an existing creative, or if they are a domain owner of a high-end premium domain, who has previously not participated in SH). In the latter case, there are additional steps the domain owners must perform to first pitch the domain to the SH team, and then submit them to the contest after SH gives them a green light.
It is also important to note, that we are referring to a handful of contests per month which meet the above criteria.
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Thanks, @Grant. I understood you when you explained it the first time too. I’m only referring to those special circumstance contests.
However, let’s say a creative has a domain that they own or brokering that they can’t submit via a contest because of the limitations SH has in place for submitting entries (for example- the domain is owned by a creative, listed elsewhere and wasn’t submitted to the SH marketplace first). Since you’re looking externally anyway for any domain and people can suggest whatever domain they want- why not have a direct communication line to you via Squadhelp where creatives can pitch you these domains that can’t be submitted directly at contests? Most creatives here aren’t aware what you’re doing on other sites. At the moment, I have to go to another forum, see your post, try to contact you there where you aren’t as active as you are here. I think people who are already at SH should be aware that any domain can be pitched when that’s the case- not just the ones that qualify to be submitted in contests- and have the option to contact you directly (and privately) within Squadhelp.
I hope you can consider this and make the communication channel to you simple in those special circumstance contests. Thanks for the consideration.
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I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding here.
There are three ways to submit domains into the few Squadhelp contests that have the -SC.com option:
- Available .com (standard submission)
- Squadhelp Marketplace domains (as these contests are all open to premium domains)
- Domains clearly listed for sale on a credible third part platform (-CS.com)
With respect to your comments, you are correct that we do promote a select few contests through various means. However, in the end, all domains are submitted to the contest via one of the above three mechanisms.
If we find a domain that we’d like to present to a Contest Holder, the domain must either be listed in the Squadhelp marketplace or on a credible third part platform (the same requirements that Creatives must follow).
If you have any relevant names that meet our submission rules, please submit them directly in contests. If your names do not meet those submission rules, pitching them elsewhere serves no additional benefit.
Therefore we do not see any merit in opening up another channel for creatives to pitch their names - the contest platform already serves that purpose and any other channels of communication would be redundant for existing creatives.
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Thanks. You said previously in this thread (about .SeeComment submissions):
“If a Creative owns a domain that they would like to submit to a specific contest, they should first enter the name for consideration in the Squadhelp Marketplace. If for some reason, the domain is not accepted,
the Creative can still submit the domain if it is listed for a fixed price by a credible site, and of course highly relevant to the project.”
But not all names can be submitted to the SH marketplace first. Some are already listed elsewhere under exclusivity. Or some didn’t get the valuation that felt right to list it for at the SH marketplace. So this rule prevents submission of these names, while at a third party site- anyone can submit names without limitation. In addition- in my case, like last week or today- I can also offer domains that are brokered. Those can’t be submitted in contests either because those aren’t listed with a BIN, but there’s an agreement of the seller to sell at a specific price.
So… by looking in third party sites you’re giving people who aren’t SH creatives the option to submit domains that can’t be submitted by SH creatives. I don’t think I’m getting that part wrong. I can submit options in third party sites too (and do it). But most creatives won’t see your post there and it makes sense to inform creatives about it. So I’m just saying that creatives should know when SH is open to submissions which can’t be submitted to contests. That’s why I thought you should open a direct channel for these submissions. I hope that makes sense. 
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Others in this forum don’t have all info required to understand your discussion. You lost me anyway 
Let me see if I follow so far:
it says clearly if you DO NOT own the domain. Situation where we DO OWN a domain, but it is not in SH marketplace, remains unclear to me. Can we use such domain in -SC contests and sell it for the price we listed it on other markets?
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I understand the point Tal is making but I also get that Grant feels all scenarios are handled thru the current system and doesn’t see the need for adding additional communication options. I don’t have an opinion either way on that but I see both your points of view.
What I think is at the core of the issue is that SH occasionally announces on another website that they are looking for a premium domain name for a client with a large budget. Premium means domains like OpenHouse.com, Hire.com, Raindrop.com etc. that have little or no chance of being found in our small SH community/marketplace.
I’m sure SH has its reasons but it seems really weird to me that SH is taking on the role of a domain broker during these times.
SH knows best how to run its own business but they’ve sure got me scratching my head on that one
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I have to admit that I am completely confused by this conversation and that I have a few domains that I also can’t list with SH (even though I tried – but they were originally rejected so now can’t be submitted even though that I now own them) and I’ll have to list them somewhere at some point. That means that this conversation may be important especially since one of mine could be considered premium, so the head-scratching bits are really losing me.
Since this discussion is leading to quite a bit of confusion, I am sharing some additional details for better context.
As a background, we have built significant capabilities and have achieved leadership in the name crowdsourcing space (thanks to our wonderful naming community). However in case of the domain marketplace (since it is fairly new), we still need to do more work to further build it out. We continue to get amazing submissions from our creative community into our marketplace (for hand registrations as well as pre-owned domains) however we currently have limited inventory of high-end names (such as single dictionary word .com names).
As many of you know, we now get several large companies (including Fortune 500 companies) who use our platform for their naming projects. Therefore, when we get such customers, we make efforts to reach out to domain owners of high-end domains.
By announcing some of these requirements in external sources, we are simply building an awareness and encouraging domain owners of these high-end domains to participate in our marketplace, as well as submit their premium names in the contests that are looking for them. This does not mean that these domain owners are allowed to participate with a different set of rules. They still need to comply with all our platform policies (including entry submission policies) just like our existing creatives.
For everyone’s benefit, here is an article that covers all the rules for submitting names to contests that are open to “Premium Domains”:
Our goal is the become the #1 domain marketplace of high-quality names and we will continue to invest our resources in activities that help us attract the best names, as well as attract the best customers who are looking for those names.
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Boy oh boy, Grant, do I ever wish I had purchased some of those premium names a long time ago! Thanks for clarifying all of this.
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