Fresh TLDs ought to emulate the Startup.club model for premium domains

Program promotes .Club while also generating premium domain sales revenue.

.Club’s fresh Startup.club program is ingenious, and something that other fresh top level domains ought to consider emulating.

Here’s startup.club in a nutshell: get a premium .club domain name but pay it off over 10 years, and .Club will also give you PR and marketing support.

None of the features of Startup.club are fresh. TLDs have offered payment plans on premium domains for a while (e.g. sex.xxx), others have put marketing muscle and PR behind their registrants (e.g. .co), and plenty have screened for people that will actually use their domains (e.g. RFPs for single letter domains, founders’ programs).

What is fresh and interesting is how the firm packaged its offering. It’s a formal program, neatly packaged and available for anyone that has a good plan for a .club domain name.

Startup.club will allow .Club to make headline-grabbing announcements, such as Coffee.club selling for $100,000 (when the first year commitment is only $10,000). It will also help the firm find end users and entrepreneurs that will actually use its domain names. The firm will, of course, lend its marketing and PR support to people that have by now purchased good .club domain names. If .Club by now wants to highlight how people are using its domains, why not market it as a perk?

I think .Club could go a step further through partnerships with subscription club platforms and club management software, essentially offering a business-in-a-box on top of .club domain names.