Document: WM-007                                                 P. Webb
Category: Project                                             2017.02.08

                     Roadmap for BeachfrontDigital

Abstract

   Far-reaching goals for BeachfrontDigital.

Body

   BeachfrontDigital[1] is a domain portfolio management tool I built
   and launched late last year. To quote the "About" page:


   BeachfrontDigital is me scratching my own itch and taking cues from
   The 7 Day Startup. I buy domains on a regular basis and often from
   more than one registrar. As a result, I tend to forget I have some
   domains! True story, I ran a WHOIS search on a domain I own, a
   couple months ago. Terrible. 😩



   The name is a result of a conversation I had with co-workers about
   how domain names are like the premium waterfront properties of the
   80s. Of course, the domain beachfront.digital was available so I
   snagged it ASAP.

   Since launching BD in October, I’ve made updates here and there and
   it seemed like I was going to get valuable feedback from early beta
   testers who assured me they would sign up at $6/year instead of the
   regular $11/year price…turns out, nobody wanted to beta test and my
   messages were ignored. Was it because of the upfront cost? Was it
   because I didn’t have a bunch of features fleshed out? I’ll never
   know. However, of the friends I reached out to for feedback Wojtek
   Witkowski[2] was the only one who got back to me. Through him and a
   prospective customer/commenter on Hacker News, I learned a
   few things:

   - I wasn’t offering anything that a spreadsheet couldn’t handle.
   - $6/year was still too much to charge for someone who has
     <10 domains.
   - To make charging for my service palatable, I’d need to create a
     sync system for registrars.
     - Not all registrars have public APIs (see: Hover).
     - There are so many registrars. It’s not cost-effective to
       maintain syncing for each.
     - Creating a sync system based on undocumented APIs like some
       people have done with Hover is a terrible idea. Undocumented
       APIs means they can break at any moment.

   For these reasons and more, *I have decided to make BeachfrontDigital
   free* when V2 goes live. I’m currently working on a stock photography
   site for people of color so upgrades and changes to BD will occur in
   March (when I’m not playing my Nintendo Switch, hehe). I also plan to
   update the site with a visual style reminiscent of the 80s. Here’s
   how the site used to look:

   

   Here’s how it looks now:

   

   As you can see, the styling went from pretty cool (the logo was
   levitating and the background grid moved as well) to extremely
   sterile. Nothing’s wrong with a sterile look, that’s what this blog
   looks like, haha! But for something with the URL
   beachfront.digital, it could stand to look a bit more impressive.

   A key missing feature is the ability to import your domains. If
   you’ve already got a method to organize your domains and you want to
   use BeachfrontDigital, you sure wouldn’t want to type everything
   again right? Hell no, who has time for that?! I intend to make
   the wishlist feature more robust, as well as the personal analytics.
   For example, I’m paying $2027 for 75 domains per year 😅. Anyhoo,
   watch this space and @BeachfrontD[3] on Twitter for updates. 🕸