Managing the Domaining Partnership-Website Creation

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Case Studies in Domaining

Managing the Domaining Partnership

Often it is the case in a domainer's career that they are outpaced by development or domain portfolio management tasks in a time sensitive manner. There are lots of terms and agreements and conditions to know about. The renewals and the statistics and the Hosting plans and the forwarding can all bring one single domainer to their knees. It happens that for some or all domains a domainer may take on a partner or enter into a partnership with another domain name specialist for focused and strategic domain name marketing, traffic promotion, and website creation milestones. Even the most casual of agreements can be misunderstood or one party may take advantage of the other.

Domain partnerships can be very loosely defined or strictly articulated in boilerplate legalese. When payment or compensation are at issue, it's best to draw up an agreement governing repayment for effort, hosting, consulting, programming, coding, managing or navigating a domain registrar interface. Too many cooks spoil a broth, and too many user privileges can wreak havoc on a website or domain project. To prevent communication issue or timeliness from wrecking a domain value (or damaging reputations) some case studies can explore and illustrate the need for some agreements and covenants before the controls and access information gets traded or shared.

Domain Management Partnership Case # 1

Website Creation

Website creation for a domain name involves an exchange of skills, web site creation involving hosting and HTML files and a participation or referral value for the work performed. It is essential that agreement explicitly state what contributions of time or achievable benchmarks in work product or programming occur in exchange for what scheduled amounts of compensation or goods/services and how and when those resources will be paid. Disagreements regarding changes of passwords, transfer of domain names, and billing for these attached integrated vendor products can occur and arrest domain value development progress. Interruption of services that the site rests contingent upon must have safeguards and formal guarantees.

Case Study premise: In deal terms, Skip hires Chip to develop www.amazingdomain.com and make a website for it.

A)
Chip undertakes this task, but three quarters of the way through Skip is unhappy with the site. Skip natters complaints before Chip can finish the site, and Chip withdraws from the project in frustration. Chip claims that many of the functions and features Skip now desires were not part of the original deal terms and moving the site off his desk is impossible because Skip keeps attaching more features at every milestones well beyond the scope of work. Chip is losing money and wants out. At what point can Chip get out from under the project and demand payment without being stymied by Skip? Who can Chip go to to "cash out" of the deal? At what point might a third party be best left to settle the balances of work and compensation owed in each direction?

B)
A newby domainer, Skip wants to discuss a lot of domain plans but commits to nothing without a guarantee of ad revenues up front. The time consuming Q & A has worn Chip down. This would seem to put any effort contributed by Chip on the fence. What would then motivate Chip to participate? Skip is reluctant to transfer hosting passwords to Chip, and Chip is frustrated by the seeming inexperience of Skip and his inability to handle sophisticated elements without costing Chip huge additional chunks of communication time. Conversely, Skip seems at times exceedingly savvy about the domain market, making Chip wonder if he's being had. Chip wonders every time he gets an email from Skip if he can afford to walk away or perhaps it's best to just cease communicating with Skip.

C)
Chip readies the website project for launch while Skip shows the www.amazingdomain.com website to friends.While not privy to the hosting limitations or time and cost logisitcs of the site development project, wide spectrum criticism pours forth. Skip falls under the influence of the advice he hears and revises his plans for the site daily. Receiving lengthy emails eviscerating his efforts daily churns Chip with frustration. He starts to ignore Skip's emails, knowing no amount of work can outpace the daily chum.When Skip complains Chip is not communicating, Chip retaliates that he has no more time to waste. for. The site stalls. Reading and writing pages of negative email a day is umcompensated torture Chip has no taste or time for.

D)
Skip expands his demands for Chip's time and skills well beyond the tasks assigned when the partnership began. Yet compensation does not occur, increase, or change. Worse, Skip leapfrogs new jobs and cancels old orders without notice, leaving Chip weltering in a mishmash of priorities. Expended effort and research is not compensated for and Chip is nearing the breaking point handling Skip's enteprise for "free".